The family tree of humanity as we know it - Homo sapiens - isn't as straightforward as "one species gave way to another." New evidence suggests that at least two different Homo species lived in Kenya about 2 million years ago.

Scientists report in the journal Nature that they have linked recently discovered fossils with a controversial cranium found in 1972 in Kenya. They believe these new remnants belonged to the same species as the skull, which has been dubbed Homo rudolfensis. The study is led by prominent paleontologist Meave Leakey.

The Homo rudolfensis skull, found near Lake Turkana, has a bigger brain case and a flatter face than specimens of Homo habilis, the other species of the Homo genus that appears to have lived around that time. Homo habilis is thought to have been a toolmaker because its hand bones were found next to stone tools.

It has been evident for a long time that there were several contemporaneous Homo species present in this area of Kenya called Koobi Fora, said Ian Tattersall, paleoanthropologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who wasn't involved in the study. This study helps confirm that, he said.

But some scientists not involved in the study said there is not enough evidence to claim that the new findings, together with the 1972 skull, represent a distinct Homo species.

Lee Berger, paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, called this argument based on associations of a few fossils "weak." He said in an e-mail that the fossils should also be compared to other potential human ancestors, such as Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus sediba.

"East Africa is not an island," Berger said. "One must use the whole continent's evidence for human origins in such an important argument as the question of the origins of the genus Homo."

The new fossils consist of a face, lower jaw and fragmentary lower jaw of different ages, none of which is quite as old as the first Homo rudolfensis specimen. These new fossils are believed to be 1.83 million and 1.95 million years old. They include a face that is "incredibly flat," as there is a straight line from eye sockets to where incisor teeth would have been, said study co-author Fred Spoor of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The cheekbones on either side of the nose are far forward, contributing to that flatness. The incisor teeth are in a straight line, he said.

All of this information allowed the researchers to do a virtual reconstruction of what the head of a member of this mysterious species would have looked like.

Leakey, of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, said the differences between this species and what we've known previously are "more extreme than you would expect" and are not merely regular variations of the same species. The skull's straight profile is distinctive, she said.

The environment in this area is very windy, sandy and extremely hot today, but it would have been less hostile 2 million years ago, Leakey said. Lake Turkana was a lot larger, and there was more vegetation, so there was more opportunity to eat different types of food. And even if Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis lived around the same time, they may not have known one another.

"We can’t say they were standing next to each other and could shake hands," Spoor said.

Whether we descended from the species of these ancient creatures is unknown. There could be some other, yet undiscovered species from around this time that is a more probable ancestor.

Bernard Wood predicts, in an accompanying article in Nature, that by 2064, "researchers will view our current hypotheses about this phase of human evolution as remarkably simplistic."

soundoff(1,058 Responses)

Thomas Jefferson

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.

August 8, 2012 at 10:41 pm |

Gadflie

I have a distinct idea of the trinity. It's evidence that even monotheists are closet polytheists.

August 8, 2012 at 10:43 pm |

lordnimrond

That's the most awesome statement ever....

August 9, 2012 at 5:56 am |

ElmerGantry

Pointing out the glaringly obvious to the credulous and willingly ignorant is futile.

August 10, 2012 at 11:01 am |

sbp

Well said Tom, and thanks for the Declaration of Independence. PS: If god is all powerful, why is his nature limited to a Trinity? Why a dodecaity? The father, son, uncle, first cousin, holy spirit, semi-holy almost-spirit, Super Bowl QB? Is he somehow constrained by physical laws when it comes to this one thing?

August 8, 2012 at 10:53 pm |

amyesther

I think the Trinity idea comes from all those partiality for certain numbers that you read about in old King Jame's book. Bet they were in the earlier revisions too. Primitive people with even a rudimentary understanding of math and geometry have 'magic numbers' they use to invoke miracles, etc. Seventh son of the seventh son, 666, 12 tribes of Judea, a 1,000 days and just how many are going to get into heaven? 144,000 – something like that. Read Revelations. The chapter is hog-wild over 'magic numbers' and that's just the one chapter.

August 9, 2012 at 6:03 am |

Shawn

I really don't understand why the concept of evolution frightens religious people. Evolution isn't magic, and it doesn't conflict with religious beliefs as far as I can tell. My kids all have my nose (unfortunately) – that's evolution. And, if by some bizarre event, a virus wipes out everyone in this planet with a small nose, my kids will survive, and they will marry other large-nosed survivors, and their children will have large noses, and in a thousand years, everyone will have big ole honkers. It's amazingly easy to see how it happens if you just open your mind a tiny bit. Evolution is simply survival of the fittest in an every changing world.

Your kid has your nose is genetics smart guy...take a freakin' biology class. Evolution doesn't happen in one's lifetime or even in one generation...it happens over many generations ove long periods of time. You just failed evolution. But you claim to be the authority on it; leave the science to the professionals with degrees that have studied it. You are as ignorant as you claim creationists are. Some of us creationists know a helluva lot more about evolution than evolutionists do so its no wonder that we don't believe in it.

August 8, 2012 at 10:46 pm |

Steve

Yeah. It happened long long ago in a place far far away, the beginning of every fairy tale.

August 8, 2012 at 11:27 pm |

glahd

Its actually not that complicated, evolution is basically the survival of the fittest. You might need a degree to work out the details but the main jist is easy to understand.

August 9, 2012 at 1:57 am |

JP

So you're ok with the concept of genetics, but not evolution? However simplistic the original post was, it was much closer to the truth than a sky fairy waving his hand and *poof* everything exists now in the same form it always has. Seriously, to believe that you have to dismiss mountains of evidence that evolution is real and based on the genetics that you seem to be Ok with.

It starts with parents passing on their traits to offspring and ends thousands of generations later with whatever traits provided the best survival.

August 9, 2012 at 2:49 am |

moroniccombat

Genetics are the backbone of evolution and make up the sum of it, just as weather is the backbone of climate and make up the sum of it – both over time. Stop putting down logic with fairy tales.

August 9, 2012 at 5:42 am |

vivaldi

Your answer just proves arrogance and intrinsic unwillingness to even accept the fact that as a scientist you can never close the door to the possibility that other's theories could eventually be proven even if you vehemently disagree with them. It is that underlining religious motive that make creationists pseudoscientist because you need to be opened to the posibility that your opponent's view could eventually be confirm and be able to accept it without making it a religious based argument. The mind autodeceives itself when arrogance and stubbornest prevail. Have a blessed day.

August 9, 2012 at 7:05 am |

Dalcassian

YOU DA MAN !!!! Creation is truth. And there is soooo much scientific proof to support it. Interestingly though it's all dismissed. Whenever they find evidence of Creation, it is dismissed simply because it doesn't support the THEORY of Evolution. The theory by the way has never been proven and even Charles Darwin himself had many doubts about it.

Yes, that's right. Charles Darwin, the father of the Theory of Evolution and author of "The Origin of the Species" had serious doubts about his own theory. Charles Darwin by the way was raised as a Christian.

August 9, 2012 at 8:20 am |

Miles

Evolution has nothing to do with belief in god, the Catholic Church supports evolution, some significant scientists support evolution and are Christians. If evolution were disproved tomorrow, it would not make a difference to most atheists, the default position does not suddenly become belief in god. Creationism would not become the default position since it is still very bad science. I wonder if these people check to see if their doctors accept evolution, it being the basis of modern biology and all, those blinder must be a little tight.

August 9, 2012 at 10:34 am |

artieess

regarding gladh's "Survival of the fittest" My recollection of Darwin wasn't that survival results from a trait but that the trait is passed to the next generations because of survival. A very simple example: Giraffes didn't develop long necks to reach food; the animals with long neck were able to reach food. So the long necked animals mated and passed on the long neck genes. The animals with shorter necks were not able to reach food, therefore could not survive, and the short neck 'giraffe' ancestors died....

August 9, 2012 at 9:08 am |

TJ

This is by far the most ignorant thing I've seen all day, and I work right across the street from a scientologist church. Genetics is the foundation of Evolution. Organisms evolve because of random genetic mutations which give rise to the NONRANDOM process of physical traits which EVOLVE over time. Hence small noses evolving into "honkers", or trunks in the case of elephants. The fact that you wrote this off shows just how little you know about science. You should really take your own advice and leave it to us professionals who've actually studied it. As for your self, I'm sure Mother Goose rhymes are more up to your speed.

August 9, 2012 at 10:51 am |

Steve

However believing death and destruction to be a catalyst for evolution is counter intuitive and against known laws like the entropy.

August 8, 2012 at 10:48 pm |

sbp

You don't understand the actual Second Law of Thermodynamics. If Entropy worked as you think it does, I couldn't clean my room. It would HAVE to always get messier and messier.

August 8, 2012 at 10:52 pm |

TR in ATL

@sbp... that's like an argument made by a kindergartner. Strap on a pair and brighten up.

August 8, 2012 at 10:55 pm |

sbp

No, it's an argument that befits the understanding of the post being responded to. Do you really want an explanation of S = k ln W? You wouldn't understand it.

As any first year chemistry student can tell you, the driver of all chemical reactions is the Gibbs free energy.
dG = dH – TdS
If you only view part of the system, there can be an apparent decrease in entropy (water turning into ice) however if you look at the bigger picture (the water is in the freezer), you will notice that entropy of the universe has increased because heat has been emitted from the freezer. You are looking at the Earth in isolation, but you forget that big shiny thing in the sky commonly known as the Sun is pumping energy into the Earth in the form of visible light and it is leaving the Earth in the form of infrared light. There is a net increase in the entropy of the universe because we require energy from the sun to live. If you don't believe me, try not eating any food which came from photosynthesis (plants, fungi, meat, the cow had to eat grass, remember) and see how you fare. You'll quickly notice the effects of entropy on your isolated body as you die and decay.

August 8, 2012 at 11:59 pm |

Andrew

Umm, yes, that 'fancy equation' does apply, it ALWAYS applies, because it fundamentally is the best definition of entropy we can get, it's the ln of the phase space, statistical mechanics is really the only way we should talk about entropy from a physics perspective.

... Not that you'd care, you'd use the words without any understanding of the meaning, physics is a lot more nuanced than you think.

August 9, 2012 at 6:54 am |

Gadflie

Bluetail, actually evolution often happens fairly quickly. Ask any farmer who has to change pesticides every couple of years. And, it happens quickly for the exact reason that Shawn said above.

August 8, 2012 at 10:48 pm |

TR in ATL

Adaptation, not evolution. No new species evolved.

August 8, 2012 at 11:36 pm |

Gadflie

Are you under the mistaken impression that all evolution is speciation? Even if you are, surely you are aware that new species have evolved under lab conditions? No "millions of years" needed.

August 9, 2012 at 12:34 am |

Dan, TX

New species arise all the time. Of course, you will want to make up your own definition of species and not use the scientific definition to make sure in your own mind that new species are not being produced. But, in the real world, where definitions of species has actually has been codified, new species arise all the time, just as others have pointed out. I agree there are many questionable cases where it is hard to know if a population has become a new species or not, but that's to be expected when evolution is going on right now and we are seeing the process of evolution creating new species. Many, many examples exist.

August 9, 2012 at 10:26 am |

Gadflie

Steve, please specify how that goes against the second law of thermodynamics (entropy)?

August 8, 2012 at 10:50 pm |

sbp

Don't expect much that isn't parroted back from a creationist website. Search this page for stickleback, and you'll see an example of his actual knowledge of the subject.

August 8, 2012 at 10:55 pm |

Steve

Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society. We can observe these both happen everyday. For example we can observe negative mutation in human birth every day. How many positive mutations do we observe everyday? None. No aditional information is added to any genetic code. Only destruction over time. Yes all species have the ability to adapt to different environments, but that is a variation we are all capable of. Once returning to the original environment the variation changes back. It is not evolution it is variation. Much like my tan does not change my genetic code. These are things we can observe.

August 8, 2012 at 11:03 pm |

sbp

Nope, Steve, that's not it.

August 8, 2012 at 11:04 pm |

Gadflie

Steve, obviously none of that has ANYTHING to do with thermodynamics at all. But, positive mutations have been observed quite often actually. For example, there is a bacteria that now can digest nylon byproducts. Note, these weren't even around before the '40's so this is a recent mutation.

August 8, 2012 at 11:07 pm |

Shawn

Need to open it up a little wider Steve. My wife has a rare mutation – a natural immunity to malaria (I know – sounds like a worthless mutation). She has handed this down to her children. Is this a positive or negative addition to the genetic code? Some hundreds of years ago it would have been profound since it might have caused an entire family tree to exist a malaria outbreak. But advances in medicine is making it difficult to actually observe the impact of the genetic evolution that is occurring.

Steve? No positive mutations? You are nuts, positive mutations happen all the time in the real world. Now it is hard to think of examples in humans, 6 fingers? Advantage? If you text message on your phone all the time, a sixth finger might come in quite handy. Bring fame, helps you make babies, other 6 fingered people come out of the closet and take over. New species? No, but perhaps a step toward a new species if the 5 fingered and 6 fingered decide they should not interbreed anymore.

August 9, 2012 at 10:31 am |

Shawn

You seem to have completely missed my point (as you have been programmed to do). Evolution is the handing down of successful traits to your offspring, and (as I stated pretty clearly – but tried to dumb down for some) takes thousands of years of interbreeding and change. Maybe it is simpler to cite viruses when pointing out the fact of evolution. Every year viruses evolve. Not all the viruses evolve at the same time, but the ones that are more successful become more predominant.

August 8, 2012 at 10:51 pm |

Andrew

No, it is changes of gene frequency of a population over time. It's distilled to 'survival of the fittest' but more often than not, it's 'survival of the barely adequate' and variance within a population. Evolution is all about gene frequencies, which are passed down for different reasons, some negative, some positive, some both, like the sickle cell gene.

It's dangerous to try to paint evolution as overly simplistic.

August 9, 2012 at 6:58 am |

Shawn

Oversimplification in an attempt to explain it in terms that someone who doesn't have a clue what a gene is, or cannot fathom the complexity of a single strand of DNA. But, everyone will agree that kids typically look like their parents. And if you can take that little bit of innate understanding and build on it, it may help someone have an epiphany! (while being ridiculed by those that are mentally superior to myself).

August 9, 2012 at 9:55 am |

Fritz

It's an ego thing with the religious folks. The notion that they might be a part of the evolved but souless animal kingdom rather than a divinely created superbeing with a soul and somehow in the image of the creator of the cosmos is simply so egregious to them that they just deny it.

August 8, 2012 at 11:34 pm |

GWEdwards

@Fritz. Funny. I always considered it an ego thing with the anti-religious folks. The notion that they might be under a divine superbeing, rather than not be on top of the food chain is simply so egregious to them that they just belittle it.

August 9, 2012 at 7:00 am |

Benny

"Every form has its maker." Maimonides

August 9, 2012 at 9:58 am |

Shawn

Isn't it funny how both sides of this issue use identical arguments! But, I guess I can see what you mean. If you admit that things do evolve (like there are new flu's every year, or insects evolve and develop resistance to pesticides), then that would open the door to admit that given millions and millions of years, it is possible that a single cell of plankton evolved through millions of gradual, unimaginable permutations to ultimately deliver us to the point that we sit in front of these stupid computers.

August 9, 2012 at 10:03 am |

Dan, Tx

Evolution is an undisputed scientific fact. Creationism is not a scientific theory. I'm fine with people believing in God if they choose. But let's not confuse science and faith. Science is always wrong to some degree, faith is always unfailingly correct to the believer. I'll take the always incomplete understanding that is generally heading closer and closer to the truth. But I understand why people believe in God and may peace be upon them.

August 9, 2012 at 9:14 am |

nocdib

Nice, humane response.

August 9, 2012 at 12:47 pm |

Tom Joad

Read the bible many times, went to bible school, received a thorough understanding of the bible. Became an atheist.

Religions are self serving and inwardly destroying.

August 8, 2012 at 10:33 pm |

Gadflie

It's hard for me to understand how somebody can read the entire bible and come out of it actually believing in God. How do they rectify the OT and NT versions? Bi-polar God?

August 8, 2012 at 10:41 pm |

ArchieDeBunker

Gadflie – perhaps you need to aquaint yourself with the numerous learned men (probably a lot more learned than you) who have started out to 'prove" that the Bible is false – and ended up becoming Christians. C. S. Lewis is just one of them, but, based on his writings and his successes, I'd guess he was probably as smart, possibly (likely, in fact) smarter than you. There are thousands of learned and educated men who believe that the Bible is the everlasting Word of God. Why should anyone believe you, instead of them? You have an axe to grind against religon, Christianity in particular, I think. You seem not able to connect with the fact that even in their current (hee hee) "advanced state" humans know next to nothing. Yes, science has been very successful (thank goodness) in solving some of the problems of humanity, and (in the case of atomic energy) creating problems which may be worse than the ones they've solved. You guys love to cite the fact that at one time Gallelo was ridiculed for saying the earth revolved around the sun. I'll site the fact that in the 1890's a famous scientist (can't think of his name right off) stated "Everything that will ever be discovered in physics has already been learned. All that is left is to refine the experiments." You are in the same boat as those who ridiculed Gallaleo – you don't realize that many, many of the things we now think we know for sure may well be termed as rediculous a hundred years from now. Includin, may I suppose, the idea the the Universe "sprang from nothingness without a cause." Until you explain in detail how the Universe was created I will continue to think that you're just as nuts for believing there is no God as you think I am for believing there is one, and that it is possible to have a relationship with Him. Perhaps you just haven't had enough trouble in your life to humble you into realizing that there are things that your reason cannot explain to you, and that you just might need to contact that God you don't believe in to help you out when things get really bad for you.

August 8, 2012 at 11:53 pm |

Observer

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
- Isaac Asimov

August 9, 2012 at 12:01 am |

ArchieDeBunker

Observer – I presume that Asimov, when he said "properly read" meant "with mind and eyes closed."

August 9, 2012 at 12:29 am |

Gadflie

Archie, let me see if I have your argument down. Lots of smart people actually believe in the Christian God, so this must be evidence that he is actually real? Can you name a single God that we humans have invented for which that same argument can't be applied? I didn't think so.
As to your "You are in the same boat as those who ridiculed Gallaleo" line, that is an obvious strawman argument. Can't you do better than that?

August 9, 2012 at 12:38 am |

Observer

ArchieDeBunker,

Your presumption is obviously nothing more than wishful thinking.

August 9, 2012 at 12:39 am |

Gadflie

Archie, what's wrong? Apparently you think that when one of the smartest men in history must be misquoted because you disagree with him? LOL!

August 9, 2012 at 12:42 am |

Ashis

Read Sanskrit Vedas and Puranas. Human have been in this earth from million million years ago. Darwin theory is a fairy Tale

August 20, 2012 at 4:45 pm |

Hikaru

Amen, same here. The sad thing is that people of faith will never understand how liberating it is to lose the bondage of religion.

August 8, 2012 at 10:45 pm |

TR in ATL

Until the day you face GOD and are thrown into the fiery pit. Not sure how liberated you'll be feeling then.

August 8, 2012 at 10:57 pm |

Gadflie

TR, sorry kid, the boogie man type threat doesn't work with us adults.

The bottom line Gadflie is this... You either believe or you do not believe. Simple enough. You go thru life believing what you want and I go thru life with my beliefs. When we both die that is the day that either something or nothing happens. We both have had happy lives while on earth. But if your way of thinking is correct.... neither one of us looses. Happy on earth and nothing but dust awaits us. BUT what if I am right and there is a GOD. If you are wrong and you have to face him, which you will, there is no second chance. Can you afford to be wrong? You dont even have to change your lifestyle much. Just believe in him while on earth. You really cant afford to be wrong.

August 9, 2012 at 8:08 am |

cptpooppants

I love T.R.'s argument. Believe or die! Typical religious nut. You sit there and wish to sink your twin fangs of guilt into people in the hope that they will believe out of fear. lmao

August 9, 2012 at 8:41 am |

Dan, Tx

Yeah, if you argue you should believe in God just in case God is real, you've lost the argument.

August 9, 2012 at 9:19 am |

TJ

tarheel, all you've done is reworded Pascal's Wager. And it won't work because your argument has terrible holes in it: a) which god are you referring to? Who's to say you didn't pick the wrong god to worship? b) you're assuming this thing you call god actually cares whether you believe in him/her or not c) even if this god cares, you're assuming it will be "too late" according to your words.

August 9, 2012 at 11:04 am |

Gods_in_the_math

To Tar Heels point. By your logic, the only reason to believe in God is to prevent the possibility that he is real and because of that you will suffer. Well, I've read my Bible, cover to cover, raised Lutheran, now consider myself to be "gnostic" as opposed to agnostic. I believe in what I have learned, both from my own personal experiences and what smarter people than me have proven, to that, the Bible is a remarkable barometer on humanistic behavior (how we should treat each other) but does very little to determine and explain the existance of an actual God.

The Bible explains the existence of God, that he is "from everlasting to everlasting", without beginning or end (Ps 90:2), whose personal name is Jehovah.(Ex 6:3; Ps 83:18; Isa 12:2; 26:4 in the King James Bible) If anyone has read the Bible from "cover to cover", but yet still is unable to grasp who the "only true God" is (John 17:3), then there is serious failure to read with intent and purpose. Jesus used a Greek word (at Matthew 13 six times), syniemi, that means to "mentally put the pieces together", like putting a large puzzle together.

With the Bible, a person can understand "where we came from, why we are here and where we are going", why man was created to live on the earth as his "inheritance".(Matt 5:5; Ps 115:16) However, the churches have truly distorted and lied about what the Bible teaches, even accepting the theory of evolution.

Without intimately knowing our Creator, Jehovah God, these are "left out in the dark", with no hope for an everlasting future. It is as Proverbs 11:7 says: "When a wicked man dies, [his] hope perishes; and even expectation [based] on powerfulness has perished." When these have died, that ends their life, unless these are privileged to receive a resurrection from the dead and "turn around", in order to gain life without end on a paradise earth.(Luke 23:43; John 5:28:29; Acts 3:19)

September 10, 2012 at 12:04 am |

Steve

Atheism is a religion.

August 8, 2012 at 10:50 pm |

Gadflie

LOL! One based on reality but, by definition a religion. So what?

August 8, 2012 at 11:01 pm |

sybaris

If atheism is a religion, then medicine is a disease.

August 8, 2012 at 11:21 pm |

Elencia

If atheism is a religion, not collecting stamps is a hobby.

August 8, 2012 at 11:56 pm |

Believe

But by dabbling in God debates, you've engaged in the activity of "collecting stamps," Elencia. Please shed the atheist religion and come to the Lord.

August 9, 2012 at 10:35 am |

fintastic

I smell a troll, and man, does he stink!!!!

August 9, 2012 at 10:52 am |

Richard Koffarnus

Read the Bible for the first time when I was seventeen. Went to Christian college and seminary; received a thorough understanding of the Bible. Became a professor of theology.

Amen, brother. See you in eternity! ETERNITY starts today and your destination is only a heartbeat away! To many of you, please don't fall for Satan's lies any longer.

August 8, 2012 at 10:59 pm |

Tara

Funny, I had the complete opposite experience and came to the same sense of freedom.

August 8, 2012 at 11:22 pm |

LetsThink123

I've read the bible and became an atheist. Maybe when u read the bible, u were not applying critical thinking??
Genesis is blatantly wrong. Lets look at the first 4 verses:
Science says: The Sun is much much older than the earth. Agree? Everyone knows this and science proves it. The sun is about 4.57 billion years old, while the earth is 4.54 billion years old. The 0.03 billion years difference is large (30 million years)! Also, the reason that the planets orbit around the sun is because the sun was here first, and then the planets formed from the accretion disc to revolve around the sun. This is accepted fact and is taught in schools.
NOW -> In genesis, on the 1st day god created the earth. And on the fourth day (three days later), he created the sun and the stars. This is a huge error! Why would god create the sun after the earth? It's because genesis is a fairytale myth, and science proves this.
There are other problems too. For instance, as mentioned earlier, god creates the sun + stars on the 4th day after the earth was created. We also know from science that some stars were around much before our own solar system and sun existed. I can go on with the errors made by 'god' in genesis, but i'll leave it at that.
If genesis was really written by god, then it shouldn't have simple errors like this.
TR then talks about Satan. LOL. TR, just like there is no evidence for the existence of god, there is no evidence for the existence of satan as well. In fact if u read the bible, u will see that both god (Jesus) and satan, supposedly supreme beings, thought the world was flat. Paraphrasing the bible:
Remember during the temptation in the desert, when Satan took Jesus to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth? Obviously both Jesus and Satan and the biblical authors who made up this story did not know that the earth was round. No matter how high a mountain I take you to TR, you cannot see all the kingdoms of the earth because the earth is round. Jesus/Satan who u consider to have godly powers were not aware of this simple fact. How can satan who is deceiving people with lies not know that the earth is round.
The real answer to these questions is because the biblical authors made up these stories, hence they r wrong when compared to modern science.

August 9, 2012 at 10:59 am |

Huh

Then I sure hope you dont teach logic

August 8, 2012 at 11:01 pm |

ArchieDeBunker

Mr. Joad – sorry to straighten you out on this, but you are not an "atheist" – unless your mind doesn't work properly. If you are standing in your front yard tomorrow and a golf ball hits you in the butt, I'll bet anything your first thought will not be "Well, by golly, would you look at that! A golf ball materialized out of thin air and hit me in the hiney!" No, your first thought will be something like "Hey! Who threw (or hit) that?" If your mind is normal (that is, if you are not insane) you are incapable of truly believing that the Universe had no First Cause. You have convinced yourself that you are an "atheist" because, after all your Bible School and other vast religous learning, you didn't want to believe that you couldn't just go your own way. In other words you don't believe in God because YOU DON'T WANT TO – but your "belief" has nothing to do with whether, subconciously, you actually believe that the Universe just "sprang up from nothing." Perhaps one of these days when your life spins out of control and you can't solve or understand what has happened to you, you will go back (as I did) and remember all that old "nonsense" – and in the depths of your suffering you may turn back to the God you rejected – and perhaps find, as I did, that it is the only thing that makes any sense.

August 9, 2012 at 12:05 am |

JP

Making up fairy tales to satisfy our craving for a cause to go with every effect is silly. People who needed to "understand" why we have day and night used to fill that need with a sun god and his chariot. Using god to explain why the universe exists isn't any more likely to be true than Apollo in his chariot.

August 9, 2012 at 3:02 am |

Shawn

The problem you are having, is conceiving of millions of years of change – and how much change in the shape, color, # of limbs and such can occur in millions of generations of an organism within an ever changing climate/world. If the flu and evolve into a new strain every single year (in fact, multiple strains per year) – is it so hard to believe that in a million years it might become a lumbering giant blob that consumes everything in its path? My problem is believing that someone snapped their fingers and magically assembled trillions and trillions of atoms into a the first man.

August 9, 2012 at 10:29 am |

LetsThink123

ArchieDeBunker, what u spout is nonsense. I just explained in the comments above u where genesis is wrong by citing examples from genesis. For instance, genesis says that the earth was created first before the sun and the stars. This is hogwash.
But i want to address your first cause argument that u keep bringing up with ur demented golf ball example. What u r trying to get at is that, in your OPINION, something could not have come from nothing, i.e. there must've been a first cause. But what others r trying to put in ur head is that the first cause (god) is NOT the only possible answer. There could be many other answers besides god. Currently, science does not know what happened before the big bang. Because science doesnt know the first cause, therefore its god is ur answer. This is the argument from ignorance. For example, say we were having a conversation 2000 yrs ago and u asked me where thunder and lightning come from. I would say i didnt know since science didnt understand weather back then. Then because science or I dont know the answer, u say 'thunder and lightning is from god!'. It can be easily seen why u r wrong and that ur position is an argument from ignorance. I hope u now understand what others r trying to tell u.

August 9, 2012 at 11:10 am |

Consequence

one has to be inclined to accept biblical insight in order to believe it. the bible is a witness of what ancient hebrews saw transpire in their generations. we are free to believe or not to believe – but believing opens many doors to understanding. shutting doors never led to wisdom.

August 9, 2012 at 2:46 am |

Miles

A common line of reasoning for psychics, astrologers, cryptozoologists, dowsers, conspiracy theorists, Holocaust deniers, and a number of other pseudoscience practicioners. I am not sure you are doing yourself any favours by putting yourself int hat company.

August 9, 2012 at 3:21 am |

lordnimrond

The bible didn't "witness" anything.... It's not alive,...it has no eyes or ears.... It's just a collaboration of stories cobbled together LONG after the events supposedly took place, made mostly of hearsay, and composed almost entirely of myths through most of it... It contains lots of stuff folks WANT you believe, and was created as it is now for the express purpose of controlling the masses...

Quoting it and referring to it does nothing, in the minds of most rational folk, but undermine any veneer of credibility you may have once possessed...

August 9, 2012 at 6:07 am |

Noel

Let's not confuse God with religion, Jesus along with the apostles criticized religion quite frequently. God is Love, religion as well as the rest of mankind often falls short.

August 9, 2012 at 1:48 pm |

Tom Joad

And people still treat each other like animals.

August 8, 2012 at 10:27 pm |

Gadflie

Here's a dose of reality for everyone. Evolution, like gravity, plate tectonics etc. is both a fact and a theory. It's a fact because, well, there is no actual scientific doubt that it happens. Speciation has been observed in repeatable lab experiments. The theory is our explanation of how it happens.

August 8, 2012 at 10:21 pm |

TR in ATL

"It's a fact because, well, there is no actual scientific doubt that it happens"... Brilliant!

August 8, 2012 at 11:00 pm |

Gadflie

TR, I'm not sure what your definition of a fact is. But, the experiments that show speciation are easily repeatable You can see for yourself.

August 8, 2012 at 11:38 pm |

Chris

A hypothesis is a guess. A theory is a tested hypothesis that works.

August 9, 2012 at 12:02 am |

PK

Chris – succinctly well put – and actually a simpler statement than the way I often think of it:

A hypothesis is a guess, a question or idea about how something might occur.
The experimental test then explores the hypothesis, looks at it from multiple viewpoints, pokes at the fabric, tests the limits
The "Theory" is the idea (mechanism, framework) that best fits the experimental data.

Over the last 150 years or so the exact facts (the experimental information, data) around evolution have themselves, pardon the term, evolved. The basic theory has been refined but the basic theory of survival of the most suited to their environment (sound bite: survival of the fittest) has never wavered. Today there is a mountain of supporting data to the fact of evolutionary both for adaptation and speciation.

BTW – this is how science works. A single fact or experiment does not invalidate a theory. Until sufficient evidence that doesn't fit the theory is developed, the "Theory" stands. The next step would be to refine the theory, not to scrap it.

Reading these comments, I fear for my grandchildren. Carl Sagan was right, we are never more than one generation away from a new dark ages.

August 9, 2012 at 9:33 am |

Shawn Davis

People in America are still fighting over this issue. Amazing.

August 8, 2012 at 10:17 pm |

Gadflie

Kind of sad actually. In the search for knowledge, science has often had to go against religious doctrine. And, knowing the track record of the two, my bet is always on science.

August 8, 2012 at 10:24 pm |

Shawn

Religious powers have been very successful at killing independent thought (and the people having those thoughts) for centuries. They still have an unbelievable hold over way too many people for my comfort level.

August 8, 2012 at 10:26 pm |

Randy

Okay, if you believe in science then you have to go to this website. http://creation.com and in the small search box type in any subject that you disagree with like Noah and the Ark and you'll find scientific studies and responses back from the scientist that owns the website. Check it out, you'll be shocked!

August 9, 2012 at 12:41 am |

Shawn

Funny huh? But it is actually impossible to debate this topic with a religious person because they become enraged that their beliefs are being challenged. So doing it via a forum such as this is necessary.

August 8, 2012 at 10:25 pm |

TR in ATL

Enraged? Hmmm... no, saddened really. Your religion of evolution is painfully naive. Yes, it's your religion, your 'set of beliefs'. I'd actually like to 'debate' this topic with you. I don't get enraged at all. My goal is to show that there are options. Your religion versus mine. And mine is so much easier to believe than 'Big Bang', 'billions of years', 'millions of years', 'life popped up'... How about thousands of eye-witnesses who saw Jesus Christ after he was crucified on a cross? Have you read your Bible? It will change your life. Take a look out your window and see the amazing variety of life. Do you really, honestly believe that it occurred from random mutations (bats and elephants having such similar structure but such variable features – random mutations or Designer)? Or are you more afraid to admit that there's an infinite Creator behind it? I'd actually have much more intellectual respect for one who admits the latter. Anyway, suffice to 'debate' online.

August 8, 2012 at 11:11 pm |

Gadflie

Ok, I'll debate you. Let's start with a question for you. Just to demonstrate that you actually have an open mind and are intellectually honest. This is to see what kind of evidence it would take to actually get you to admit that evolution, even one species evolving into another is an actual fact.
If I could give you a complete record of every evolutionary single step between two species (species by the most stringent scientific definition, they do not interbreed), each step verifiable by whatever test you like, would you then admit that evolution is indeed a fact? If not, why not?

August 8, 2012 at 11:26 pm |

Chris

When was the last time you had to feed your dog or cat an orange? Any type of fruit? Never? OK, how about you? What would happen if you never had any fruits? A little disease called scurvy common hundreds of years ago. Humans and other primates cannot produce Vitamin C naturally in their systems, but dogs, cats, rats and practically every other animal can. If you were designing humans wouldn't it have been nice to include that little chunk of DNA to do that?

August 9, 2012 at 12:10 am |

Hikaru

Here's the truth for you sad bible thumpers, if god were real he'd be a matter of fact not faith.

August 8, 2012 at 10:16 pm |

jonp

What you don't get is that christians equate faith with fact. Have you ever debated the existence of god with an evangelical christian? It's not only an exercise in futility, it's actually a painful experience. it's easier to just pretend that they don't exist.

August 8, 2012 at 10:22 pm |

Steve

He is. Problem is you don't understand the difference between fact and faith. That's why we are having this discussion.

August 8, 2012 at 10:23 pm |

Hikaru

Here are the dictionary definitions of fact and faith, I learned the difference between the two at the ripe old age of 5. I'm sure your definition varies, so maybe you should write a dictionary and set everyone straight.

Fact:
NOUN:
Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: an account based on fact.

Faith:
NOUN:
belief that is not based on proof.

August 8, 2012 at 10:40 pm |

wow

Once people decide to actually read the Bible and apply its' knowledge then they should comment....geez

August 8, 2012 at 10:27 pm |

Gadflie

I've read it several times. I find it amusing that people actually worship this fictional cosmic playground bully.

August 8, 2012 at 10:31 pm |

Tom Joad

You can't argue with people that believe in a faith for their own self satisfaction. It's just not rational.

August 8, 2012 at 10:29 pm |

wow

faith is not about personal satisfaction...waiting for some of these people to actually read a bible!

August 8, 2012 at 10:32 pm |

TR in ATL

And who appointed you the one to determine what GOD is? If GOD was fact, there wouldn't be a need for Him. You totally miss the concept. GOD has given you many, many chances to accept Him, have faith in Him. By you denying His existence, you give Him no choice to decide what your eternity is. Why not accept Him and be on the right side of eternity? To me, it's a no-brainer. He11 is real and you don't want to go there.

August 8, 2012 at 11:17 pm |

Hikaru

Prove it.....oh wait a minute you can't, I would have to "believe" hell existed. From your replies I can read you're quite the bible scholar. Do me a favor and answer a question that has been dodged be every pastor and theologian I've asked. Why are there two different accounts of the birth of Jesus in the bible? Matthew and Luke are the only 2 books that have the story of the birth of Christ, Matthews account comes off like an action movie with Mary and Joseph fleeing Harods wrath. Lukes version of events is quite the snooze fest and from that comes the nativity story. Believers constantly decry the bible is factual, if its so factual how come the bible can't get the story, of the birth, of its main protagonist right. What amazes me is how believers use nothing more than ridicule, fear mongering and character assassination to prove to themselves their god exists, but none of them can ever explain the gaping holes in the bible.

August 8, 2012 at 11:49 pm |

Chris

The Bible definitely needed a proofreader. Each of the gospels was actually written for a different audience in mind to help convince them why they should convert. You may want to look at the "Q Source" for the gospels. A theory which explains why there is commonalities and differences between the different books. Sadly many of the Bible thumpers tend to focus on a few verses and ignore big picture. Focusing on the trees while ignoring the forest, if you will.

August 9, 2012 at 12:19 am |

Jugger75

"As an athiest,having a Christian threaten me with hell is like a hippy threatening to punch me in my aura." – Josh Thomas, comedian

August 9, 2012 at 8:57 am |

Noel

That is just an ignorant statement!! The whole point of faith is free will. Would you like people loving you because they have to, or because the genuinely love you?

August 9, 2012 at 2:55 pm |

fimeilleur

really? you want to invoke the free will argument? Is your version of god not omniscient? Does he not know the past, present and future? If so, he then knows all my "freely decided decisions" before I even was born. My life will have been scripted. Can I change any of these "choices"? Not unless I was more powerfull than your god... So, am I more powerfull than your version of god? Or do I really have free will?

Your arguement is as laughable as Pascal's wager... the just-in-case believers who think that a god would be fooled by pretending to believe. If he is that easily fooled, why is he a god?

August 11, 2012 at 8:03 am |

Russell C.

I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed about things so I won't try be all deep and complicated. Here's my little take on things though. I believe in what i can see, what i can hear, what i can smell, what i can touch, what i can taste and what I breathe in. I'm just a 41 year old hard working dude out there on this kick ass planet trying day by day to learn and grow. And I believe that that's exactly what we as humans have been doing for millenia. I think were awesome and I think our ancestors no matter what or who they were were pretty friggin awesome too. I mean were here because of them. They were survivors just like we all are. Anyway, that's what I think.

August 8, 2012 at 10:07 pm |

TR in ATL

And the terrorists of 9/11? Pretty awesome people???? NOT. In my opinion, they're a great example of evil. Hitler... pretty awesome dude? Hmm.... Not too many would agree with you. If there's evil in the world, makes a good case for the opposite. The Good News is GOD is the real deal and He IS AWESOME! HE IS REAL. HE is GOOD and incidentally, He thinks you're an awesome dude too! Check Him out!

August 8, 2012 at 11:23 pm |

gisw

Evolution questoin. If a single cell climb onto shore and sarted the whole evolution string of events, at what point did female and male develope and why? Remember froma single cell is my understanding of evolution. This is a serious question and I have not found the answer.

August 8, 2012 at 11:55 pm |

Chris

Remember the 9/11 terrorists and Hitler are God's children and Jesus said to love your enemies. Hope you prayed for them today.

August 9, 2012 at 12:23 am |

Dave

If you don't believe in God, he will burn you for all eternity. God is kind of a jerk.

August 8, 2012 at 10:02 pm |

Steve

His creation. His rules. However the burning for eternity thing is a myth. Yes the evil people will burn according to their works but then that will be the end of it. Their bodies and souls will be burnt up and their punishment, death, will be for eternity.

August 8, 2012 at 10:26 pm |

Gadflie

That's an interesting theory. Do you have any Bible verses to back it up?

August 8, 2012 at 10:32 pm |

Thomas Jefferson

And you know this because?...

August 8, 2012 at 10:33 pm |

Noel

This way of thinking is based on religion not the Bible, there is a difference contrary to popular belief. Hell is eternal sleep or darkness you just wont wake up, God is a lot more compassionate then people give him credit for. No human can grasp his grace & forgiveness.

August 9, 2012 at 3:02 pm |

TG

The churches have taught that God will "burn you in hell" if your bad, not the Bible. This false religious teaching has brought reproach on God by the churches who have, in effect, villified God, making him out as a fiend who loves to see people tormented in a "fiery hell".

In the Bible book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah wote concerning how God views the Israelites for burning their children in a fire: "And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin."(Jer 32:35, King James Bible, see also Jer 19:5)

Thus, to burn anyone in a fire was never commanded by Jehovah God, "neither came it into my mind", but is called an "abomination" or "something detestable" by him. He hates this wicked doctrine taught by the churches. Actually, the word "hell" is a wrong translation for the Hebrew word sheol that means basically the grave or "concealed place" (see Jonah 2:2), as well as the Greek equivalent of sheol, hades, being cast into "the lake of fire" or everlasting destruction, along with Adamic "death".(Rev 20:13, 14)

August 11, 2012 at 11:25 am |

Joe

Whatever your position, no matter what you say or believe. God will bring every deed into judgment including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. All will stand before his throne on His great judgment day.

August 8, 2012 at 9:56 pm |

Gary

Amen – the bad news is all have sinned and fallen short, the good news is God offers free salvation. Good night all.

August 8, 2012 at 9:58 pm |

NJ

Fools!!

August 8, 2012 at 10:18 pm |

CC

Or none that will happen because your imaginary all powerful sky fairy isn't really there.

August 8, 2012 at 10:10 pm |

Randy

Okay Atheist, if you believe in science then you have to go to this website. http://creation.com and in the small search box type in any subject that you disagree with like Noah and the Ark and you'll find scientific studies and responses back from the scientist that owns the website. Check it out, you'll be shocked!

August 9, 2012 at 12:44 am |

Miles

Right, believe a website over the thousands of universities and hundreds of thousands of scientists who would disagree with the little website. Very logical.

August 9, 2012 at 12:59 am |

Observer

Randy,]

The Noah's Ark nonsense goes against all logic and science. Get serious.

August 9, 2012 at 1:20 am |

Gadflie

Believe what you like. May it give you comfort. Me? I'll pass on the whole God thing. I prefer reality.

August 8, 2012 at 10:12 pm |

Thomas Jefferson

Yawn!

August 8, 2012 at 10:34 pm |

sybaris

Evidence?

August 8, 2012 at 10:35 pm |

cptpooppants

Yes, all hail the flying spaghetti monster!

August 9, 2012 at 9:01 am |

Ed Sr of Dallas Tx

We have evidence of TWO different species from Kenya many years ago? I guarantee you one thing! One is a definite monkey from Kenya!!!!!!!

August 8, 2012 at 9:55 pm |

Gadflie

Actually, they are no more monkeys than you are. Both are apes, same as you.

August 8, 2012 at 10:12 pm |

Mortalc01l

The fact that you do not know the difference, or distinguish between an Ape and a Monkey speaks volumes about your intellect and educational level.

August 9, 2012 at 12:14 am |

Gary

The theory of evolution is based on an intellectual house of cards. If you are honest with yourself, and have STUDIED the so-called facts, you will agree. But here is your real problem, acknowledging God exists implies there is a set of rules to live by which most of you would rather not obey. Therefore you deny..... Good luck, you WILL meet him someday.

August 8, 2012 at 9:45 pm |

Shawn

Don't confuse a morale code book that you live you life by with truth. Religion is one of the best (and worst) inventions of man. It gives people hope, comforts those last lose loved ones and keeps many people in line that would otherwise run wild. But I don't think you or anyone would belief that atheists are 'worse' people than religious people. Most of the nuts out there are also crazy for religion.

August 8, 2012 at 9:49 pm |

TR in ATL

It's very simple... your view of evolution IS YOUR religion. Remember, we all start with the same facts and from there, it's wherever your belief structure leads you; that's your worldview. You assume millions of years, we believe GOD created life. Don't tell me your 'science' proves anything about origins. The 'science' books written about early life forms are pathetic, there's no science anywhere in those pages. It's actually very sad when you study it. So many hypotheses, assumptions, possibilities, and no proof of one single claim. Life started in the primordial slime, then evolved to land, and then went back in the water (wolves->whales, "Other newly found fossils add to the growing picture of how whales evolved from mammals that walked on land."). How ludicrous. The only way to minimize this 'scientific nonsense' is to separate 'origins' from 'science'. Put 'origins' in a Philosophy class where it belongs and compare it to other world religions. Then we all can celebrate the precision and beauty of scientific study and exploration.

August 8, 2012 at 10:22 pm |

Steve

Actually there is a lot of good science in those books, now if we could only tear out the religious evolutionary stuff(truth and lies mixed) everything would be ok.

August 8, 2012 at 10:30 pm |

Shawn

Weighing everything, I'll reach for the 'science' that has some actual proof (and, though you won't admit it, mountains of facts) that support it, versus an unsubstantiated, translated, collection of stories.

August 8, 2012 at 10:30 pm |

CC

Nope sorry, he doesn't exist. I have just as much to meet Gandalf of Bugs Bunny.

August 8, 2012 at 10:12 pm |

Gadflie

A house of cards? More like a mountain of fossils, data and lab studies. If you want a house of cards, look at the whole God thing. Not a shred of evidence supporting it at all.

August 8, 2012 at 10:14 pm |

Andrew

I read these comments, and I'm reminded how bad the American education system is...

August 8, 2012 at 9:44 pm |

Bryan

First comment here that didn't make me shudder, thank you

August 8, 2012 at 10:09 pm |

Frightened yet?

These nutters get to vote for folks that will control nuclear weapons.

August 9, 2012 at 3:16 am |

sybaris

I would never have imagined knowing anyone with a contempt for science until I met a person from what you Americans call a Bible Belt. Simply appalling disregard for facts.

August 8, 2012 at 10:40 pm |

Shawn

For all the folks with biblical blinders on... evolution isn't something that suddenly, overnight, changes all apes into humans. Evolution takes millions of years of gradual changes occurring in some of the creatures. If it happened the way you like to describe it (or perhaps the only way you can conceive of it) – there would only be a single life form on earth, and they would all look identical.

August 8, 2012 at 9:43 pm |

Gary

Shawn – evolution never happened, what you believe is the veneer of science, for instance, answer me this. How do you know something is "millions" of years old ? You will parrot back something you heard or you may have read, but you haven't a clue or any personal knowledge of dating methodologies and there attendant suppositions which are based on "feelings", "opinions" but lacking true scientific basis.

August 8, 2012 at 9:56 pm |

Clem Monteignue

How do you 'know' something is old - two main methods really;biostratigraphy and radiometric dating. OMG so many Americans are so stupid; perhaps this is why you are in decline and will soon become just another south american nation.

August 8, 2012 at 10:15 pm |

sybaris

Gary, you really need to take some college level courses in biology and anthropology, geology would be a good one too.

August 8, 2012 at 10:42 pm |

Geoscientist

Oh...I know how something is millions of years old...I analyze them everyday in my geochronology lab!

August 8, 2012 at 11:24 pm |

Shawn

Lol – guess you can say the same of religion. But let's look at this weeks events. Rivers and ponds in the midwest have heated up, and millions of fish have died. But, some have survived the heat – some trivial little difference in their makeup allowed them to withstand the temperature rise. They'll breed, they'll reproduce, and in a couple years the fish in those stream will be more heat resistant – its called evolution. It's not nearly as magical as you think. It's simply survival of the fittest as the environment changes around them.

August 8, 2012 at 10:00 pm |

Joe

The Bible mentions several names that you can still find in the history books such as David, King Solomon, King Nebucadnetzar, Cesar, Herod, etc. May be they never exist either. Those history books are wrong.

August 8, 2012 at 9:40 pm |

Observer

That has nothing to do with whether God exists.

August 8, 2012 at 9:46 pm |

Joe

Actually it does. David, Solomon, and King Nebucadnetzar affirm that God exists. Herod confirms that Jesus was born.

August 8, 2012 at 9:51 pm |

Shawn

So, if someone writes a book that references real people and places, then that makes the book true? You might want to read the Davinci Code then – it is filled with actual facts...

August 8, 2012 at 9:52 pm |

Joe

@Shawn, read any history book on David you will learn that he always prays before he goes to war. He affirms that God gave him his victories over his enemies. Should we say that David did not exist?

August 8, 2012 at 10:06 pm |

Shawn

I didn't say that he didn't exist. But if I write a book that references him, in it, does that make the facts in my book true? How do you know that he prayed, and god killed all his opponents? Were you there? Was anyone alive in the past 2000 years there? Was it written in a book? Does that make it true? Do you have a recording of him praying? (that would at least be some evidence of truth).

August 8, 2012 at 10:14 pm |

Shawn

I mean, seriously, you will ignore fossilized remains of creatures that no longer exist on this earth – surely you can't deny that the fossils are real? But you will live and die by some multiply-translated storybook that offers no proof of the existence of God. Don't confuse the historical evidence of the actual existence of some of the named people in the Bible with absolute proof that the whole thing is true.

August 8, 2012 at 10:19 pm |

Gods_in_the_math

Joe – Flawed arguement. The idea that simply because a person in the Bible believes in the teachings of the Bible does not prove that the messages given are factual. Yes David believed in God, I would to if all of my power came from the idea that I was a chosen by God to lead his people, I'm not about to say, "stop, I know you think I'm chosen by God, but I don't buy it, but worship me anyway". As with any politician or person in power, He will say and do whatever it takes to get you to believe in him as the "devine choice".

August 29, 2012 at 3:11 pm |

Gadflie

Most works of fiction mention things that actually exist. But, sorry, that isn't evidence that they aren't fiction.

August 8, 2012 at 10:15 pm |

Gadflie

Here's a dose of reality for everyone. Evolution, like gravity, plate tectonics etc. is both a fact and a theory. It's a fact because, well, there is no actual scientific doubt that it happens. Speciation has been observed in repeatable lab experiments. The theory is our explanation of how it happens.

August 8, 2012 at 10:21 pm |

Joe

The Bible mentions several names that you can still find in the histtry books such as David, King Solomon, King nebucadnetzar, Cesar, Herod, etc. May be they never exist either. Those history books are wrong.

August 8, 2012 at 9:38 pm |

caprica.apotheosis

"BATTLESTAR GALACTICA" WATCH AND IT WILL TELL YOU WHOM WAS HERE FIRST. FACT

August 8, 2012 at 9:27 pm |

Joe

You say God does not exist because you have no proof. I say none of you exists because I have no proof. If you really exist shake my hand.

August 8, 2012 at 9:16 pm |

JT

I hope you're a troll and just being sarcastic.

August 8, 2012 at 9:21 pm |

good_answer_nah

Can you shake his hand? No. Therefore, the troll does not exist.

August 8, 2012 at 9:28 pm |

WhackyWaco

It is all virtual reality.

August 8, 2012 at 9:31 pm |

swisscottage

Nobody can categorically prove that God does or does not exist.

August 8, 2012 at 9:42 pm |

fintastic

Can you prove santa claus, the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy don't exsist?

Eeew! No WAY I'd touch a troll. You guys are all full of cooties, fleas, bedbugs and ticks! Ick, go back home where you came from, AND STAY THERE!

August 9, 2012 at 12:19 am |

Steve

No one has ever observed stellar, chemical or biological evolution of any sort. Saying these things happened or happened without observation has just left science and entered faith. Faith is the cornerstone of religion. Evolution is religion.

August 8, 2012 at 9:13 pm |

JT

If evolution is a religion then NOT collecting stamps is a hobby. I hope you are only 8 years old and have not broken free of your parent's indoctrination.

August 8, 2012 at 9:19 pm |

Dennis

Nonsense.

August 8, 2012 at 9:24 pm |

Steve

I'm 38 and have broken free of from the atheists doctrine.

August 8, 2012 at 9:27 pm |

21k

55 here, and been a recovering catholic for about 10 years now. i've never been happier than since i realized that religions are just a bunch of stuff made up 2000 years ago by a bunch of arabic tribal leaders who had to have a good story to keep their clans in line. now sundays are so great, no stress, just spending quality time with the family, that way life was meant to be.

August 8, 2012 at 9:39 pm |

Shana

Atheists don't have a doctrine, and plenty of Christians believe in evolution. (I think it's the overwhelming evidence, but who knows.)

August 9, 2012 at 10:18 am |

Miles

Atheism is a single belief. That there is no evidence for the existence of god. Period. End of story.There is no moral code, there is no belief system, there is no hierarchy, there is no collection plate. Hence it is not a religion.

August 9, 2012 at 10:42 am |

sbp

You can say no one has observed it, but that is simply a lie.

August 8, 2012 at 9:35 pm |

Sense

Homicide detectives should be called priests. They didn't see the murder happen. Using evidence to show what happened is all faith based. Police work is religion.

By the way, I'm making fun of what you said.

August 8, 2012 at 9:36 pm |

sbp

Steve is happy to spout off as if he knows something, but he is unable AND unwilling to support his position. When I cited evidence of OBSERVED speciation, he simply denied that the divergent species were separate species, because they still shared a common colloquial name (you know, like the "fact" that Apes are just one species – even though there are chimps and gorillas, they are still CALLED apes, so they are the same). When I cited the list of species making up the divergent species, he fell back on "well, they didn't evolve into chickens". So clearly, he wants to see a video of a goose turning into a man (in real time). Because that's how he defines evolution.

August 8, 2012 at 9:44 pm |

want2believe

If you truly believe chemical/biological evolution has not been observed, you should really read a scientific journal. Ever hear of bacterial antibiotic resistance? That's evolution in progress.

August 8, 2012 at 9:50 pm |

CC

Well sir, your first problem is using facts and logic. Religious people don't like things that are true. You should make a huge fairy tale up, with enormous convoluted tangents then they will listen.

Wrong. Of the many observed examples consider one easy enough for your naive understanding of the world – the common cold or the flu virus. Constantly evolving and due to the extremely short life cycle (which in turn means generations of the species come and go in a short amount of time) can and has been observed.

Believe in whatever the hell you want, it won't make a difference in anyway. As far as the Earth is concerned you have only borrowed some molecules, and you will be giving the back relatively soon. Maybe not soon enough.

August 8, 2012 at 11:26 pm |

MotoJB

"There could be some other, yet undiscovered species from around this time that is a more probable ancestor."

Yeah, ET damnit!

August 8, 2012 at 9:03 pm |

alfy

If I read this correctly, "The new fossils consist of a face, lower jaw and fragmentary lower jaw of different ages" do you realize that means, along with the cranium from a different place and time, that this reconstruction is really a jigsaw puzzle of unrelated bone fragments? And this is called science?

August 8, 2012 at 8:51 pm |

damo12345

The bones match up with traits found in a skull found in 1972. The fact that we've found more fossils with the same unusual traits supports the theory that the 1972 skull was not a fluke.

Yes, this is science.

August 8, 2012 at 8:56 pm |

Steve

No it's not science. It's a faith based religion based on fraud, deciept, fallacies and misconceptions. Much like this fake skull.

August 8, 2012 at 9:01 pm |

CC

Following a book that was written by goat herders 2000 years ago. Then picking parts that best suit your needs to follow. Looks like I'll stick with science.

August 8, 2012 at 10:17 pm |

Lorenzo

Well, congratulations! You atheists made history on this thread...more hubris than I've ever seen in one place before. Pat yourselves on the back....oh, wait, that's what you always do, thinking you're so smart. Never mind.

August 8, 2012 at 8:47 pm |

I Am God

Actually most Atheists are far more intelligent then religious extremists. A fact that is proved almost daily.

August 8, 2012 at 8:48 pm |

Wesley

It's more intelligent "than" not "then". If you want to make a point about intelligence you should make sure your grammar is correct or you lose all credibility.

August 8, 2012 at 9:10 pm |

CC

Meh, a grammatical error is nothing compared to being afraid of the all knowing all powerful fairy in the sky. Might want to use a little logic. Oh wait...........................

August 8, 2012 at 10:19 pm |

sbp

Not smart...just smarter than others.

August 8, 2012 at 8:48 pm |

n8r0n

It really doesn't take that much intelligence to be able to tell that there's no invisible man in the sky, listening to you mumble to yourself, who sent himself, as his own son, to earth, to be born of a virgin, get killed on a cross, come back to life, not be recorded in history by any historians of his time, then become elevated to a deity about 300 years later, during a political negotiation between rival religious sects.

It just takes a little maturity. I actually know a lot of children who know enough to identify that story as complete make-believe.

August 8, 2012 at 8:58 pm |

benniedex

Let's see... Josephus was not a historian, on the payroll of the Romans, after Jerusalem fell in 77ad which was close enough to the resurrection to be refuted? If Jesus didn't exist, then why didn't the authorities dispute it way back then?

In a single paragraph (the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) Josephus confirms every salient aspect of the Christ-myth:

1. Jesus's existence 2. his 'more than human' status 3. his miracle working 4. his teaching 5. his ministry among the Jews and the Gentiles 6. his Messiahship 7. his condemnation by the Jewish priests 8. his sentence by Pilate 9. his death on the cross 10. the devotion of his followers 11. his resurrection on the 3rd day 12. his post-death appearance 13. his fulfillment of divine prophecy 14. the successful continuance of the Christians.

In just 127 words Josephus confirms everything – now that is a miracle!

BUT WAIT A MINUTE ...

Not a single writer before the 4th century – not Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc. – in all their defences against pagan hostility, makes a single reference to Josephus’ wondrous words.

The third century Church 'Father' Origen, for example, spent half his life and a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus. Origen drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defence of Christianity. He quotes from Josephus extensively. Yet even he makes no reference to this 'golden paragraph' from Josephus, which would have been the ultimate rebuttal. In fact, Origen actually said that Josephus was "not believing in Jesus as the Christ."

Origen did not quote the 'golden paragraph' because this paragraph had not yet been written.

It was absent from early copies of the works of Josephus and did not appear in Origen's third century version of Josephus, referenced in his Contra Celsum.

Also, why then did Josephus remain an orthodox Jew if he "knew" Jesus was the messiah? If Josephus really thought Jesus had been 'the Christ' surely he would have added more about him than one paragraph, a casual aside in someone else's (Pilate's) story?

In fact, Josephus relates much more about John the Baptist than about Jesus! He also reports in great detail the antics of other self-proclaimed messiahs, including Judas of Galilee, Theudas the Magician, and the unnamed 'Egyptian Jew' messiah.

It is striking that though Josephus confirms everything the Christians could wish for, he adds nothing that is not in the gospel narratives, nothing that would have been unknown by Christians already.

August 10, 2012 at 11:04 pm |

Rick

Just a different species of monkey or ape that went extinct a couple of million years ago. There is no way anybody is going to convince the modern man that we came from monkeys. If that were true, why are there still monkeys around and why don't they walk like a man or talk like a man? Here's another one. Reptiles with feathers? I think some scientist got their fossils mixed up. they already proved the Tyrannosaurus didn't have a large head. How many other fossils did they mix up?

August 8, 2012 at 8:33 pm |

sbp

Hopefully, you are being sarcastic. But that IS the level of understanding (or more accurately, misunderstanding) of how evolution and genetics works that one sees from the religious. Many years ago, I actually saw Pat Robertson on TV ridiculing evolution because "I've never seen a man with the head of a man and the body of a chicken, and that's what they say, that we were once chickens. Now isn't that crazy?"

August 8, 2012 at 8:36 pm |

Jim

it's actually quite staggering how much incorrect information you could get into that small paragraph!

August 8, 2012 at 8:37 pm |

Observer

Rick,

Why not get a job as a paleoanthropologist since you think you know more than the PROFESSIONALS?

August 8, 2012 at 8:37 pm |

Doug

We did not 'come from monkeys' – that is why 'there are still monkeys around'. We share a common ancestor. Research the topic – you'll be surprised at what you can learn.

August 8, 2012 at 8:40 pm |

Chris

Knowledge is power!

August 9, 2012 at 12:30 am |

Mike Johnson

Because they didn't complete by occupying the same ecological niche. The extinction of one species has little effect of the ecological viability of other species unless they have environmental codependency. Taking science isn't required in school any longer?

August 8, 2012 at 8:50 pm |

JT

I'm going to assume you're playing the uneducated frothing at the mouth evangelical christian. I really hope you are not real but if you are I hope you die off soon and not help drag us all back to the dark ages.

August 8, 2012 at 9:15 pm |

Xorax

As an alien from another dimension, I must say that I am wonderfully amused by your quaint science and your delightfully silly religions here. You folks are a most extraordinary specimen. But sometimes the shear foolishness overwhelms me just a bit, so let me shed a little light on your darkness. In order to have a proper perspective on things, you have to understand that

1. Space, time, energy and matter are all illusions. You know this is true. Even with your primitive technology, you know that none of these things is what it appears to be. That is the definition of "illusion". Scientist and theologian alike must "look closer".

2. There is no single "past", there is no single "future", and past, present, and future exist for all eternity. The you that was back there pooping your diaper is still back there pooping your diaper. In countless different pasts. There is no "now" and no "real", except in the eyes of the beholder, because the beholder is a part of the same structure that "now" and "real" seem to "you" to describe.

3. You, your "now" and your "real" in fact describe each other. They are a structure that is immutable, eternal, and infinite. That structure also describes every other "now", every other "real", and every other "you". Consider your own adage: "A man never crosses the same river twice. It's not the same river, and it's not the same man."

4. That structure is based on mathematics, but in ways you do not yet understand. Think about it. If reality is not based on space, time, energy, and matter, just what IS it based upon? Google "John von Neumann". He sort of had the right idea. Infinite information MUST equate to an infinite variety of universes.

All this is of course some folks' notion of God, and perhaps that's as good a way as any for those folks to make sense of things. But think - that's clearly not the same God as you find in ANY religious text, and there is no reason whatsoever to attribute to it any sort of intelligence, or any sort of concern for the affairs of humankind. Sorry, but there just isn't. You folks are on your own.

There is so much more to tell you all, but I've already violated the Prime Directive. Please just consider these things, love peace, and enjoy your lives. I'll be here if you need me.

Xorax

August 8, 2012 at 8:28 pm |

John Stone

Xorax any relation to Xerox ?

August 8, 2012 at 8:33 pm |

Rick

What planet are you on?

August 8, 2012 at 8:34 pm |

sbp

Zoltan! Soon we will go into space with really cool aliens who like us.

August 8, 2012 at 8:40 pm |

good_answer_nah

Xorax, the human, hiding behind the facade of an Alien, preaches to his fellow humans from a false pedestal.

August 8, 2012 at 9:27 pm |

jeff

Thank you Xorax, how can we reach you again? What your saying rings true to me. Do you have any comments on the writings of Joe Dispenza (among others) and quantum physics?

August 8, 2012 at 9:48 pm |

JC

I had this same conversation at 2am in the morning in my freshman dorm in my first week of college.... I think everyone has, it does with "what if you are all a figment in my imagination?!?!?! DUDE! "

August 8, 2012 at 9:55 pm |

Pollywogs

Xenu??

August 13, 2012 at 8:42 pm |

Floyd from Illinois

Didn't Arthur C Clarke explain all this at the start of "2001: A Space Odyssey"?

August 8, 2012 at 8:25 pm |

Enoch100

Yep. End of story.

August 8, 2012 at 8:42 pm |

fossilhund

I doubt we'll ever know just which of these fossils (if either) is our ancestor, but I guess that's part of the fun of paleontology.

August 8, 2012 at 8:23 pm |

I Am God

I am glad Creationism was banned from our schools. It did nothing but control the masses. Examples? Muslim extremists use creationism to brainwash the masses; just like Christianity did during the Crusades.

August 8, 2012 at 8:19 pm |

Steve

Creationism was not banned from our schools. I teach it every day. HAHAHA! Right along with other religions, Judaism, Mormonism, Evolution Roman and Greek Mythologies...

August 8, 2012 at 8:42 pm |

phillip

you think brainwashing the christians stopped at the crusades? look around my friend.

August 8, 2012 at 8:44 pm |

I Am God

God is just merely a false deity that greedy people used to gain power in the world.

August 8, 2012 at 8:14 pm |

Rick

Just suppose you are wrong for a moment. Where will you go when you die? If you are right then you have nothing to worry about. End of life as you know it. You will return to the dust of this earth. But if you are wrong, you will live the rest of your life in constant torment thinking, I should have believed in God and Jesus Christ.

Why would the devil punish you? God doesn't like you so the devil will. You are one of his boys if you go to hell. Enjoy heaven with all the fat praying chicks.

August 8, 2012 at 10:25 pm |

I Am God

Rick every time the religious extremists talk about God; they make him seem like a dictator. Due to that logic, I would rather be buried in the dirt then live in a so called kingdom run by a dictator.

August 8, 2012 at 8:50 pm |

w l jones

Twin born at same time but not idental same parent yet as different both phyical and mental as day and night. You will never guest by looking at them after near eighty years they are blood brother.

August 8, 2012 at 8:12 pm |

Chris

I'm a twin, and I totally don't get what you're trying to say. Please learn to read and write, and THEN post something.

August 8, 2012 at 8:32 pm |

Steve

They should should have a warning on this article stating that this information is harmful to children and that evolution is pretend science.

August 8, 2012 at 7:56 pm |

I Am God

They should have a contest on who is the dumbest creationist believer on the blog. I am sure you will make it in the top ten list.

August 8, 2012 at 7:57 pm |

Steve

Psalm 14:1 For the choir director. A Psalm of David. The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good.

August 8, 2012 at 8:07 pm |

Stentor

It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.

Albert Einstein

August 8, 2012 at 8:12 pm |

Steve

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” That is how man came about. To think that all this life so extremely complex came from it raining on rocks like atheists want us to believe is so silly.

August 8, 2012 at 8:14 pm |

Observer

Steve,

Speaking of silly, please tell us all about unicorns, talking serpents, and the Noah's Ark fantasy.

August 8, 2012 at 8:19 pm |

sbp

Steve, do you actually think quoting the Bible as substantiation for the truth of the Bible is a logical stance to take? I can quote Harry Potter as a reason why we MUST all fear Lord Voldemort. Because it's all true, it says so right in the book.. And there is independent corroboration too. Harry Potter contains plenty of stories of their adventures in London, and archaeologists have discovered that this LONDON place really does exist. They've PROVEN this. You can actually stnad in Picadillly Circus, just like Ron, Hermione and Harry. So don't tell me I shouldn't fear "he who must not be named."

August 8, 2012 at 8:27 pm |

Steve

Sure Observer. First there is evidence that we can actually see of a world wide flood all over the world. Humongous beds of billions and billions of life from land and sea, salt and fresh water all fossilized together at the same time including whole forests. There are animals with 2 horns, 3 horns, as there was one with one horn that is now extinct. I mean even if you beleive in evolution a one horned animal would totally be in the realm of reason since we have 2/3 horned animals. A talking serpent is a liar. Have you ever heard of a snake oil salesman or a person that speaks with a forked tongue?

August 8, 2012 at 8:29 pm |

Jim

What's really silly, and I'm not assuming any controversial statements here are meant to be genuine, is that God would make mankind in his image. I mean really, what did God need with an appendix? (we don't even need it!)

August 8, 2012 at 8:35 pm |

Observer

Steve,

There isn't enough water in the earth or sky to flood it like the Bible's nonsense.

August 8, 2012 at 8:40 pm |

Steve

There is Observer. But thats one problem the evolutionary crowd have today. Where did the water come from to begin with? If God didn't make a planet with everything on it for us to survive where did it come from?

August 8, 2012 at 8:47 pm |

Stentor

Actually the appendix does have a purpose. It aids in immune-system formation that is later taken over by the spleen & lymphatic system.

August 8, 2012 at 9:10 pm |

fintastic

Steve, the more i read your posts, the more I realize what a moron you are.

August 9, 2012 at 12:49 pm |

sbp

Yes, because the scientific method relies on logic, reasoning, observation, and testing. Not something you would want to expose children too. And you wonder why the US is slipping in education compared to other industrialized nations.

August 8, 2012 at 8:07 pm |

sbp

*to, not too.

August 8, 2012 at 8:08 pm |

Stentor

It's okay sbp, the world always needs more ditchdiggers & minimum-wage drones. The christian-school attendees of today will be the impoverished class of the scientific age in the future.

August 8, 2012 at 8:17 pm |

Steve

No one has observed evolution happen, no one can test it. Hitler tried breeding his master race and all he bread was his disolusion, so much for reason.

August 8, 2012 at 8:38 pm |

sbp

Evolution is observed all the time. In fruit flies, sticklebacks, plenty of species. And it works just like science predicts it would. Though it's more complicated than simple natural selection – there are issues like genetic drift to deal with. The fact that you refuse to believe it is irrelevant.

August 8, 2012 at 8:42 pm |

Steve

fruit flies are still fruit flies, sticklebacks are still sticklebacks, and what other species have you seen turn into another...thing? One has to forgo the laws of science to believe these are true. For example entropy, a law, not a theory, but a law of science. Could you explain?

August 8, 2012 at 8:58 pm |

sbp

So basically, Steve, you don't even UNDERSTAND what the definition of "species" is, but you have no problem saying there has never been a case of evolution? A stickleback is a stickleback? Um, no. Not when one species of stickleback can no longer breed with another. And A chimpanzee and gorilla are both "apes", does that mean THEY are the same species. Did you even even bother to look up "speciation?" No.

Clearly, you didn't even bother to look into research of divergent species among animals like stickleback. You just shut your eyes to what you don't want to know.

August 8, 2012 at 9:04 pm |

sbp

And for the record, there are 16 species of sticklebacks. So your statement is just plain dumb.

August 8, 2012 at 9:12 pm |

Steve

And they are all still sticklebacks and not migrating chickens.

August 8, 2012 at 9:34 pm |

sbp

So, upon being stumped, you resort to simple spouting nonsense?

August 8, 2012 at 9:38 pm |

Observer

Those PHYSICAL fossils fit into the theory of evolution, but they don't fit into the Bible at all.

August 8, 2012 at 8:08 pm |

Observer

Steve,

Psalms also says " (Psalm 22:21) “Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.”

What was your point?

August 8, 2012 at 8:10 pm |

Allen

Steve, the creation story Genesis may make you happy. It might have a lot of symbolic and philosophical power and points of interest. But it has no explanatory power when it comes to the natural world, sorry.

August 8, 2012 at 8:21 pm |

Chris

Steve, I'm sorry but "I am God" makes a good point (albeit accidentally). Some folks are just too dense to be entrusted with critical thinking responsibilities. I just try to ignore them, and make fun of them when they can't tell.

August 8, 2012 at 8:35 pm |

Steve

Perhaps. But I don't like to make fun of people. Evolution yes. But not the people themselves. I find a good exchange of ideas using debate much fun.

August 8, 2012 at 9:07 pm |

fintastic

Yea right "pretend science"...... whew... stupidity abounds.

August 9, 2012 at 12:51 pm |

I Am God

There is no God. That is all that is needed to be said.

August 8, 2012 at 7:55 pm |

David

You know what you are going to say when you are standing before God. "Oh sh...."

August 8, 2012 at 8:12 pm |

I Am God

No all I would be saying is "You are one dumb @#%#% in believing your God."

August 8, 2012 at 8:15 pm |

Michael

David spoken like an intellect thanks brother

August 8, 2012 at 8:18 pm |

Chris

There is a God, and you have to deal with the fact that He is an illusion.

August 8, 2012 at 8:37 pm |

ArchieDeBunker

Your claim that "there is no God" will only become valid when you explain, in detail, where all those little photons, protons, neutrons, electrons, pions, mesons, antipions, antielectrons and , well , you get the idea, came from. You know, the things that the scientists tell us the universe is made up of. Tell us, oh mighty know-it-all, if you will please, where the Big Bang originated from. Oh, never mind, I'll tell you where it all started. It's described in the Bible in Genesis, Chapter 1 – "And God said, 'Let there be light." That WAS the Big Bang. As I said, until you give a plausible alternate theory, there IS A GOD. Science is no closer to the answer of how the Universe began today than it was when the people in these fossils lived. All science has done so far is chase their tails around. Every time they think they've found THE smallest particle, they find that, given enough tax-payer dollars and ingenuity, someone else will break that particle up into smaller pieces yet. Scientists actually are learning that they still don't understand the term "infinity."

August 8, 2012 at 9:06 pm |

Dave

"All science has done so far is chase their tails around." Thank you for typing that information over the non-sciency internet that God created for all of us!

August 8, 2012 at 9:33 pm |

Bobby Joe

The same could be said for God. Who created God? And if your answer is that "he just always existed", why is that any easier to believe than the matter that created the universe just always existed?

August 9, 2012 at 10:17 am |

fimeilleur

"And God said 'let there be light..." Gen 1:3
"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also." Gen 1:16

So your genius sky daddy created light before he created the source for light... Good trick... still don't beLIEve a word of it.

August 14, 2012 at 3:42 am |

Gods_in_the_math

Another failed argument. And the reason why it fails you ask. Simple, Science can not explain what happened prior to the big bang, and thats a current hole in the theory. However, my question then becomes, who/what made God? If it is implausable to think that the Big Bang was triggered without a controling force, than by that logic, it is implausable to believe that there was not a creating force prior to God. Perhaps we have Baby God, and thats why the earth is not too hot or too cold, but just right.

August 29, 2012 at 3:41 pm |

TG

No one made God, for at Psalms 90:2, it reads that "before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."(King James Bible) Our Creator, Jehovah God, had no beginning nor will have and end.

He is the "Creator of the heavens and the Grand One stretching them out; the One laying out the earth and its produce, the One giving breath to the people on it, and spirit to those walking in it."(Isa 42:5) Proverbs 3:19 says that "Jehovah himself in wisdom founded the earth. He solidly fixed the heavens in discernment."

September 10, 2012 at 12:12 am |

Merry

It requires a lot of faith to believe in both creation and evolution. One may talk about evidence for proving the evolution theory, they will not stick until you go out to space to create and populate a new world with your theory. Do that that and you will silence your critics else admit you know nothing.

August 8, 2012 at 7:33 pm |

Fr33th1nk3r

"Belief" in the Theory of Evolution requires no faith, only education. It has been proven, observed, and applied successfully in various technologies. Creationism has yet to find anything of scientific merit to support it.

August 8, 2012 at 7:47 pm |

Merry

Can you just tell me the name of the world you created in applying your theory and the creatures living in it? That's all the proof you need to provide. If not admit you know nothing.

August 8, 2012 at 7:55 pm |

fimeilleur

@ Merry, Please tell me the name of the universe where light exists before the source for light is "created"? If not, admit that your bible is a collection of bronze aged shepherd's ignorant fables and myths.

August 14, 2012 at 3:46 am |

smitvict

Fossels do not exist. If they did, they would disprove creationism.

August 8, 2012 at 7:47 pm |

Allen

The evidence for evolution is incontrovertible. That does not mean we know absolutely everything about how it happened in terms of natural history. But species evolve; if they didn't artificial selection (like dog breeding) wouldn't be possible. Over time very radical variations occured due to natural pressures "selecting" favorable traits that enhance survival and or mating probability. This explains the diversity of biological organisms now on Earth. Try researching all the basic facts of anatomy that link mammals for example, which they all (including humans) owe to a shared ancestor.

August 8, 2012 at 8:08 pm |

A scientist

Merry- Obviously you have no idea what the word theory means in science. A theory is a model that is constructed after observing the world in order to explain how we think the phenomena works. Evidence is gathered and is used to either support or reject the theory. A law is something completely different. A law is a fundamental working of nature. It is how nature works- not an explantion for something we observe. Creationism is not a science because it is not subject to falsification. Evolution is a science because it is subject to falsification. All it would take to disprove evolution is to find one example of an irreducibly complex structure (ie something that could not have developed from something simplier). Many people have looked for such a structure and every time they have failed. Educate yourself before you wreck yourself

August 8, 2012 at 8:10 pm |

Merry

Interesting enough. According to the evolution theory the big bang happened billion of years ago. How did they observe something that happened while they were not born yet? You did not see that question coming smarty?

August 8, 2012 at 8:31 pm |

Steve

Never mind a simple organism is not simple at all but very complex. Each part works together for its life could not have developed on it's own since the organism depends on them all for its survival. But I digress. How about the eye? How did it develop? Why did it develop? How come the most complex eyes developed first then de-evolve through different species? If chemical evolution is true and all this came from it raining on rocks(never mind there is no explanation from where the rain came from, which is living from non-living), why don't computers come crawling out of junkyards?

August 8, 2012 at 9:25 pm |

CC

Merry, you can actually look back "in time" and see what happened almost right after the big bang. Just so you are not confused it's not actually looking back in time. Just light travels at a very specific speed. You know what? This might be over your head. enjoy your all knowing sky fairy.

August 8, 2012 at 10:33 pm |

Miles

Merry I am afraid you have exposed your complete ignorance of Evolution. Let's review, you said...

"According to the evolution theory the big bang happened billion of years ago."

I doubt most schoolchildren could get it so completely wrong. Evolution says absolutely nothing (nada, zilch, not a word)about the Big Bang Theory. They are two completely different fields and and not remotely linked. If you cannot handle this very simple thought (boiled down to basics, one is biology, the other is cosmology), you really have no place questioning the validity of any theory.

August 9, 2012 at 12:55 am |

sbp

Setting up irrelevant and impossible conditions, and then proclaiming these MUST be met or there is no proof, does not make it true. I might just as well say "God doesn't exist unless Merry can pull his liver out of his gut and wear it as a hat. Show me that or your claims are meaningless." Dumb.

The fact is, scientists are studying and observing evolution and speciation NOW. Not fossils. Living things that because of environmental pressures (habitat isolation, for instance) have diverged into different species. You just don't want to believe it.

August 8, 2012 at 8:15 pm |

longtooth

OK, this has gone on long enough. The skull is that of my grandfather, Seamus Muldoon, who died in the back of a strip joint in old Scollay Square in what is now Government Center in Boston. It was just a little joke of mine that spiraled out of control. Now go back to your Bibles and your textbooks and have a nice saucer of warm milk.

August 8, 2012 at 7:30 pm |

John Stone

Poor Seamus Muldoon eaten by a ravenous T-Rex in a back alley! It was a gruesome sight to behold ! May someone's God have mercy on his soul AMEN

August 8, 2012 at 8:29 pm |

sbp

Are you Connie Muldoon, a/k/a Lori Beth Denberg?

August 8, 2012 at 8:30 pm |

Shawn

I personally believe that there is a GOD and he did create the Heavens and the earth. I think he did so maticulously. Look at how complex life is and all the different organisms and how the cells of the body work with each other. I also belive that our bodies are made to adapt or "evolve" over long periods of time so we can survive the ever changing world. You cannot tell me that stuff "just happened". I belive the "Big Bang" was how the universe was created because that is how GOD Planned it.
Now, to believe in GOD or not. I choose to because there is evidence all around that he exists. If I'm wrong, then what have I lost in the end? Nothing. Now, for those who choose not to belive in GOD/Jesus. If you are right, then great. But if you are wrong, then eternal damnation is your result. Personally, I would rather not have eternal damnation as my "End Result" because I was too proud to belive in something that I could not see.

August 8, 2012 at 7:20 pm |

sbp

I CAN tell you this stuff just happened. And your "I believe because I'm hedging my bets" is called Pascal's Wager. It has been so thoroughly debunked as a rationale that not even theologians use it. Go ahead, look it up. And would you really want to believe in a "higher" being who would sentence you to eternal sufferring even if you lived a saintly life ONLY because you didn't believe he was a higher being? A bit childish, this god of yours....

August 8, 2012 at 7:23 pm |

Shawn

So you can tell me "stuff just happened". Do expand and offer your un-disputable proof... I'm listening...

August 8, 2012 at 7:27 pm |

Stentor

It's called Wikipedia. Look it up yourself you lazy ding-dong, it's not his job to lead you to the truth, it's your job to find it out for yourself. But then that's the problem isn't it? It's why you believe in a thoroughly debunked philosophy, almost like Aristotelian logic posited that if you left grain out, mice would spontaneously generate. Don't believe me? Look it up, there were once people who were dumber than you, & believed in things much stupider than your God who cares about all of us, while simultaneously running the universe (puke) paradigm. If your god was a perfect being, he wouldn't deign to condemn individuals to a life of torment & suffering for eternity, basically an infinity of time, just because they disagreed with him. The idea that people have souls, & that there's an afterlife is crap also, no such thing, when you're dead, you're meat, nothing more. Religion, & god is all about mankind's vanity in thinking that they must somehow be special, & their inability to recognize that the universe is a hostile environment that doesn't really care about human survival, or even purpose in life. It's not there, it's random, you are dust generated in the corners of the room. In the center of the room, the furniture is all of the black holes that exist, they are the central features of this universe, not life. Don't like it? Tough, deal with it. The universe doesn't know or care about you or your silly thoughts.

August 8, 2012 at 7:36 pm |

Mike

I was with Shawn up the part about eternal damnation. There are seven billion humans on the planet. For a god to condemn someone living in Calcutta, or Bejing who has not even heard of Jesus is silly. It is an accident of birth thaty they live there and Shawn doesn't. I asked myself once... if I chose to not believe Jesus is the Savior, would I be condemned to eternal hell? An act my own human father (who's love I know was imperfect and flawed) would not do. My answer is no. If God's love is perfect He can love me even if I don't believe in him.

August 8, 2012 at 7:38 pm |

Shawn

And this "debunked" rationale.... Let's say there is a fierce Thunderstorm with lightening in your area and you have an opportunity to go swimming (or your family (Wife, Kids, Brother, Sister, yada, yada yada)). You probably wouldn't go or allow your children to go because you are "hedging your bets" that there is a possibility lightening will stike and electrocute you. So you stay away to be safe. That is no different than "hedging" your bets that a "God" does exists vs "God" doesn't exist because you choose to have the better of the two "end results".
My argument isn't to convince you to believe, but that there is a very high probability that both sides have merit in some respects. I don't think God snapped his fingers and things were created and i don't think that this whole existence is a random event so perfect that we have all this that is called life. I believe it is a middle ground where GOD designed and "planted the seed" and the rest is history.

August 8, 2012 at 7:40 pm |

Shawn

He said, "It's called Wikipedia". Allow me to wait for you to edit a page. Then i will search for it. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

August 8, 2012 at 7:44 pm |

Stentor

Then go look it up in a library in an encyclopedia on a printed page you lazy ignoramus. Typical rightwing trope, you may edit Wikipedia to whatever you like, that doesn't mean it's going to stay there for very long. That's what editors are for ding-dong, something else you obviously don't know anything about. But that's your life's mission isn't it? To stay dumb & ignorant until Sarah Palin is elected president.

August 8, 2012 at 7:49 pm |

Fr33th1nk3r

Okay, Shawn. Wikipedia does not debunk your religion sufficiently enough, go to http://www.talkorigins.com. They provide proof of evolutionary theory, debunking of Christian lies, specific examples of observed speciation, and all of it citing peer-reviewed scientific sources.

August 8, 2012 at 7:51 pm |

sbp

And Shawn, Pascal's Wager HAS been debunked. It's not a theological argument – you only see it from, shall we say, non-critical thinkers. You COULD look up all the reasons why it doesn't make sense, but apparently you don't want to. And I'm not about to fill a few pages doing your work for you.

Just as one example, you seem to think you are hedging your bets 50/50, either there is no God and nothing happens, , or there is a god and because you believed, you avoid hell. Except there have been tens of thousands of religions since time began. If God is indeed Zeus, your "hedging" your bets with a Christian god is pointless. So really, it's a million to one shot YOU happened to choose the RIGHT god to hedge with.

August 8, 2012 at 8:21 pm |

Greenspam

I personally believed that Allah created his servant – God.. and then ordered God to create the Universe according to Allah's design.

August 8, 2012 at 7:30 pm |

Jeff s

@Shawn Your rationale only works if the idea that eternal damnation is the end result. If it is not the end result for someone not believing in God then neither group risks anything by their beliefs.

I do not believe a God that would create something as complex as the world around us would be so petty to curse those that refused to believe in him. That is more the behaviour of a spoiled kid then a supreme being.

August 8, 2012 at 7:35 pm |

Akira

Why are people talking about religion here? This is a scientific article.

Beats me. Every new discovery in the human fossil line brings out the religious trolls.

This begs the question, do they believe they will attract anyone to their religion with their actions? How can self-righteousness and arrogance bring anyone else to God?

August 8, 2012 at 11:45 pm |

mary

.So many of the comments about eternal torment for not believing in God are just as inacurrate as the comments about there being no creation.
the bible is a book that has been misquoated and continues to be so.. it is also a book that has been rewritten many times.. each time some inaccuarcies occur . Hell comes from the word gehenna meaning fire that burns outside the city.. it was misunderstood. as an example of total destruction., all god was telling people was that you will cease to exit.. and be as gone as anything that is toosed into gehenna.. because fire ends all existence of anythng tossed into it..
as for those that swear god DOES NOT exist.. well. I would ask you to prove it..
just go out to the ends of space. take a look then, come back and tell me what you found.. Or die for about a week, and then come back and tell me how it was on the other side..
if you can't do that. then you do NOT "KNOW" God does not exit~!.And you are NOT the all knowing last word on the subject that you think you are..

August 8, 2012 at 8:17 pm |

fintastic

That's not how it works Mary. If you are making the claim that god exsists, you are the one that must provide the evidence, not the other way around.

August 9, 2012 at 1:28 pm |

fimeilleur

I will accept your challenge as soon as you prove to me the non-existence of Leprechauns. And TG proves the non-existence of Zeus, or Baal, or Thor.

August 14, 2012 at 4:01 am |

sbp

Fr33th1nk3r, that website is a .org, not a .com

August 8, 2012 at 8:45 pm |

Miles

I've always wondered why God would be too stupid to see through such a silly ruse (and a lot of christians seem to try this argument, so they must consider him to be on the dim side). You are not believing in him as a being worth following, you are believing in him "just in case" he turns out to be the horrible torturer that some sects (certainly not even half of the Middle eastern religions) portray him to be. And which god would you ultimately choose? Judaism, Islam, Christianity (which has over 1000 denominations in the US alone), and all the other isms. If you really want to hedge your bets wouldn't you have to change gods each day? You'd think they would have come up with something more convincing by now

August 9, 2012 at 1:14 am |

DavidE7

A thousand years ago, (almost) no Europeans knew that America existed. Two hundred years ago, no one knew that electromagnetic radiation exists. Fifty years ago, no one knew black holes exist. Why is it so improbable that God exists? And why is it so improbable that he is gradually revealing His Creation to us as we evolve towards Him? In light of these facts, in the argument between religion and science, it appears to me that humility is a good position to take.

August 8, 2012 at 7:19 pm |

Lepperd

I don' t think it's a question of probabilty as much as it is that God isn't a scientific theory. That doesn't mean that he doesn't exist or can't exist, it's just that the concept of God can't really be subjected to scientific proof or disproof. Electromagnetic effects can be repeatably demonstrated, Columbus brought back artifacts and took other people to the New World, but the arguments for God are highly philosophical, with no way of ending the argument with evidence.

August 8, 2012 at 7:45 pm |

fimeilleur

Throughout exploration, we tend to discover bigger and bigger bodies of existence. We also discover smaller and smaller bodies of existence. The real problem isn't whether a god exists, it's really whether IF a god exists, does he really give a sh1t about any of his creations? Why would anyone believe in the nonsense written in the bible? When Zeus ruled Mt Olympus, his home was on the top of the mountain... when the first man climbed the mountain, he found no evidence of a home for Zeus. The gods were relegated to the clouds. When the first man flew above the clouds, he found no evidence of a home for the gods. The gods were relegated to outer space. When the Hubble space telescope first looked into space, looking past 13 billion light years, we found no evidence of a home for the gods. The gods were relegated to other dimensions... When will you morons understand that you are being LIED to?

August 14, 2012 at 4:12 am |

Mark

Evolutionists can't kick at the dirt these days without finding confusing and conflicting evidence. That's what happens when you create a climate of BS in science and reward people for coming up with the wildest stories.
BS dating, BS species, BS view of history in general. I don't care what these people believe regarding religion I just think it's time to get real and stop fooling yourselves into believing that the magical addition of huge amounts of time somehow makes the impossible possible.

August 8, 2012 at 7:01 pm |

sbp

You gotta love people who are anti-science. It's like being anti-thinking. Of course there is conflicting evidence. Because science is about refining knowledge based on new knowledge. It is inherently adaptive, whereas religion is inherently immutable and therefore can't handle new knowledge.

You can pretend you aren't espousing religion, but your words give you away. "Stop fooling yourselves into believing that the magical addition of huge amounts of time somehow makes the impossible possible." Well, given that things exist that warrant understanding, they must be "possible." If you think there can be NO scientific explanation, then you MUST believe the only explanation is supernatural. Which of course, makes your premise laughable. You pooh-pooh the scientific method as "bs," but have no problem bellieving in magic.

August 8, 2012 at 7:09 pm |

Angel

How is what you stated any different from religious understanding.Scripture is interpreted differently by various people and understanding and interpretation is changed and refined by knowledge and research.

August 8, 2012 at 7:19 pm |

sbp

Scripture is not subject to critical analysis. Only differing opinions on the words from people who start out with the premise that every words is true to begin with. That's not the same as science.

Evolutionists expect unusual or "missing" links...creationists are the ones who think humans are and always have been cut from the same mold.

August 8, 2012 at 7:20 pm |

Akira

People like you are a pox on the intellect, no wonder this damned country lags so far behind others in science.

August 8, 2012 at 8:05 pm |

Nick

When scientists make new discoveries that challenge older theories, that is a GREAT thing. It means there are *new* things to learn and new paths to discover that they had not seen before. It allows them to update or correct their models about the world. The disagreement cited in this article seems to be more about taxonomy than about anything else...

Things constantly change in science as new knowledge comes in. That is the way it is supposed to work.

August 8, 2012 at 8:40 pm |

paul cos

EVERY single time an article about human origins,evolution,anything that is FACTUAL based,all the slimey,no brain,useless,ignorant and down right stupid creationists come crawling out from under their bibles to try and put away the evolution argument..Science ALWAYS makes progress on evolution each year something new is discovered..WHAT have creationists discovered to add weight to their argument lately??? NOTHING! They have the same old boring,regurgitated nonsense,quotes from books,cryptic sayings,random sillyness and riducule,NEVER any progressive facts to prove your point,you DONE,give it up,go get an education and leave the origins of human kind to adults..now run along and drink the kool aid

August 8, 2012 at 6:56 pm |

Angel

Science and religious understanding are constantly changing and neither is as simple as people make it out to be,if you ask me they are both full of it.

August 8, 2012 at 7:03 pm |

Stentor

No, not correct at all. Science has changed society radically in 400 years. Religion hasn't done squat but grow more hateful & backwards. They are not the same, they are not both full of it, you are wrong, Wrong, WRONG. Only one of these things requires verifiable proof, the other does not, that's why it's called faith. It's cynical jerks like you with your both sides do it crap that makes me nauseous because you're a moral coward. Oh, I can't be troubled to discern for myself which side is true and which is false, so I'll just blame all of them. Baloney!

August 8, 2012 at 7:27 pm |

Nick

It is my observation that changes in religion usually arise from re-interpretations of existing cannon and not from new information that comes in. Holy books tend not get any bigger with time since they considered to be 'perfect' to begin with.

August 8, 2012 at 9:00 pm |

Rob-Texas

Non of us can prove one way or another to each other. We will all know the answers the day of our last breath. I am not religious because of the Bible itself. It is s personal relationship with the creator that shows me God is real. In turn, I do believe the Bible is a factual historical account. I don't think we get the timeline correct. There are new acheolgical discoveries that show the stories in the Bible have evidence of truth. All archeolgists did not agree, look up exo jesus and iso jesus. In the end, we think we are so smart and advanced. We can hardly pass information on from one generation to the next. Yet, we have information that has been carefully past down because it was so very important. Still that doesn't mean much to some. So sad that the library of Alexandra was lost. Who knows what information was held there and lost.

August 8, 2012 at 6:30 pm |

Mitch

You call thousands of translations in hundreds of languages "carefully handed down". Wow.... how did you get there?

August 8, 2012 at 6:33 pm |

sybaris

Rob – "It is a personal relationship with the creator that shows me God is real..."

Do you gag as much as I do at hearing this pious crap?

I've known my sister for over 5 decades. Although I live in Madison, WI, and she lives in Denver, CO, so we only see each other every couple of years, I can tell you:

-how tall she is.
-what color her eyes are.
-what color and how curly her hair is.
-the different kinds of prescription drugs she takes, and what for.
-which parts of her have been operated on.
-which colleges she attended.
-what jobs she's held.
-what cities she's lived in.
-what her hobbies are.
-the names and breeds of the various dogs and cats she's had thru the years.
-her favorite sports teams, and which one she has season tickets for.
-the TV programs she watches regularly.
-that it's her on the phone just from the sound of her voice.
-her att¡tude toward eating meat.
-whom she voted for in the last presidential election.
-what kind of medical care she wants in case of a terminal illness.
-her favorite color.
-and about 50 other things.

Now that's a personal relationship. Could any of you Bible-thumpers manage even half a dozen comparable answers about your "personal friend" God? And, even as.suming your overwrought imagination could in fact gin up a few stabs at them, what are chances that they'd agree with any other equally deluded "True" Believer? OTOH, you could ask any of my sister's other good friends about the above characteristics, and they'd give you the exact same answers I would. That's because my sister, unlike your God, is real — a 3-dimensional, flesh-and-blood, living, breathing, real-world human being, with a life, preferences, substance, and history.

So, Mr. or Ms. "True" Believer, let's say you're walking across library mall one day, you see your good buddy God in a crowd of folks ahead of you, and you holler "Hey, G, dude, wait up!". Would he?
Let's not kid ourselves. This would never even happen because there's no way you'd be able to pick a God out of a crowd. Heck, you couldn't pick him out of a 1-person lineup. You wouldn't know him if he walked up to you on the street and handed you his business card. (In fact, it would tickle me pink to see your reaction if somebody actually did exactly that.)

So we both know exactly what your claim to have a "personal relationship with God" is. It's bullsh¡t. You know it's bullsh¡t. Everybody else knows it's bullsh¡t. The only reason you keep on repeating this bullsh¡t is because it's the slogan of the club that some con artist or charlatan has su.ckered you into believing you really want to be a member of. All you have to do is keep repeating the magic bullsh¡t phrase "I have a deep, personal relationship with God" and you can keep going to the club meetings. (Provided you keep paying the dues, too; let's not forget what's really important here.)
But don't think that repeating that phrase is going to win you anything but contempt or possibly some degree of pity from anyone with a functioning brain. All you're really demonstrating is that you don't know diddly about real relationships or the way the real world really works. You are, in short, a pathetic dupe. And full of bullsh¡t, to boot.

August 8, 2012 at 6:47 pm |

craig

Well you seem angry, why? I have a personal relationship with the creator, and trying to help you understand that is virtually impossible, you must believe in him, you must repent of your sin. You have to have his spirit in you. It is like trying to teach calculus to a 6month old. God loves you.

August 8, 2012 at 7:05 pm |

Ben

Sybaris: Well said, indeed.

August 8, 2012 at 7:06 pm |

sybaris

Craig, the problem with responses such as yours is that if you had been born and raised in central America about 1200 years ago you'd be saying "Quetzalcoatl loves you"

Craig, I sincerely doubt you even know what calculus is. If a partial derivative came up to you and slapped you in the face, you wouldn't know what it was. If a Green's Theorem Integral came up to you & propositioned you, you'd probably run the other way. The idea that there is no god, is like trying to teach calculus to a bible-beater, it takes more intellect to realize that god doesn't exist, than posit that he does and "cares about all of us" (puke).

August 8, 2012 at 7:45 pm |

Chris

The irony is that God would probably appear as a homeless or poor person. As the Bible says, "What you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me" But many of those Bible thumpers aren't treating those lowest in society too well.

August 9, 2012 at 12:50 am |

Nick

The article is about anthropology and not archaeology, actually. Regardless, neither can be used confirm or deny the existence of any particular deity. All sciences are concerned with understanding the natural world. The supernatural is not open to scrutiny.

August 8, 2012 at 7:04 pm |

Jeff s

Actually we can prove evolution takes place even though we cannot prove our own species' origins. Religion cannot even prove that God exists let alone whether he is the origin.

That said religion and science both rely on faith to a degree. Just because we cannot prove our origins doesn't discount that evolution exists and is working right now. Let's say we could prove God exists. We still wouldn't be able to prove he created us because we cannot prove our origins now. Our origin is different than the existence of evolution, and God's existence is different then proving he created us. Four different problems.

Given that we can prove that evolution is real and happening, it seems logically that we would have evolved from something else. You can close your eyes and pretend evolution isn't real but all it takes is taking the time to actually observe the world around you to see it does.

Evolution may have played a part in our origin. It's very possible God kick started it all. But Evolution is not the answer to the question of where we came from. It's only possibly the answer to the how.

August 8, 2012 at 7:45 pm |

Chris

Science is based on faith that God isn't constantly screwing with us.

August 9, 2012 at 12:51 am |

imolnar

I think it's been a very long time since any scientist in the field assumed human evolution was 'as straightforward as "one species gave way to another.'

August 8, 2012 at 6:26 pm |

phearis

I love reading the comments from Christians. They make me giggle.

August 8, 2012 at 6:15 pm |

al

i can picture yo giggling like a teenage girl.

August 8, 2012 at 6:29 pm |

Stentor

With a tee-hee-hee that sounds like Homer Simpson?

August 8, 2012 at 7:53 pm |

Bruce

I believe both in God and science. He really does want us to dig and learn and explore. I also believe that one day man will find his way to the beginning.......and there will be God smiling and saying "Hiya boys, what took you so long?"

August 8, 2012 at 6:04 pm |

One one

I don't think so.

August 8, 2012 at 6:08 pm |

phearis

~giggle~ Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

August 8, 2012 at 6:12 pm |

Ohhyeah

I'll give you that one, Bruce. Could be plausible. Much better than the creationist idiots who think evolution doesn't work at all.

August 8, 2012 at 6:13 pm |

Ran

Which god are you talking about?

August 8, 2012 at 6:18 pm |

craig

He is revealing him more every day. We just need to open our eyes.

August 8, 2012 at 7:07 pm |

Akira

Of course, this is all contingent on whether there's actually a god to be found. If God is found, he/she/it's got some 'splainin to do.

August 8, 2012 at 8:12 pm |

John

Outside the box Your questions about chimps was interesting. At the turn of the last century it was said animals did not know how to use tools. In the study of animals it has been shown that many animals have learned how to use tools, that they have some level of cognition, some level of empathy, and methods of communication more than her is food and warning, means that they to have evolved and specialized over millinia.

August 8, 2012 at 5:55 pm |

One one

My dog asks me to take her for a ride in the car every day.

August 8, 2012 at 6:04 pm |

paul cos

son of sam had the same problem

August 8, 2012 at 6:58 pm |

Leroy Jenkins

Spiritual people make me want to think, Religious people make me want to throw up.

August 8, 2012 at 5:42 pm |

ArchieDeBunker

Gosh, Leroy, does it also make you sick that almost every single one of those churches you hate so much has religous people in it – people who are responsible for donating more to charity, helping to care for more ophans, homeless people, people suffering from disasters, etc., etc., than any other organization in the history of the World? You base your distaste for "religous" people on a hand-picked sample of people you know who may or may not be Christians – and you grind your axe against all Christians – probably because you so desparately don't want what they tell you to be true – because if it's true you're going to have to make some big changes – changes you don't want to make and most probably will never make. But, just so you can't console yourself by saying that you never heard it, you have now been told that the only way for you to be saved and not suffer the fate of all those who fail to accept Jesus is to get down on your knees and admit that you are a sinner and that you cannot help yourself – then ask Jesus to forgive you and to help you accept Him and live by his teachings. If you read this, you no longer have an excuse. Please Don't bother to reply about all the people you know who claim they are Christians but live as though they weren't. We Christians already know about them and their perfidy ( and yours ) has already been predicted in the Bible.

August 8, 2012 at 6:03 pm |

scientific method

Archie – Stifle your self!!! seriously your psychological review of Leroy is sure filled with a lot of hope that you have for your fellow Christians or what ever. Jesus died, he was a rable rouser (community activist) for the poor and the exploited. The elders of the church (The local political leaders) protecting the Torah (societal law of the Jews) and their money changer friends (big business)ratted him out. He Judged none and said let God do that, he said pay your taxes and give ceaser his due (in so many words) Jesus was a spiritual person, the farises (forgive my spelling) were religious people. I think if you move ahead with this perspective you and Leroy will get along just fine.

August 8, 2012 at 6:11 pm |

Herman

"..the only way for you to be saved and not suffer the fate of all those who fail to accept Jesus is to get down on your knees and admit that you are a sinner and that you cannot help yourself – then ask Jesus to forgive you and to help you accept Him..."

And because she "...fail(ed) to accept Jesus...", Anne Frank suffers the exact same fate as her murderer.

And this makes ethical sense to you?

August 8, 2012 at 6:38 pm |

Herman

"...and their perfidy ( and yours ) has already been predicted in the Bible..."

A book predicts human bad behavior and hypocracy in the future! That seals it! No volume that wasn't divinely inspired could POSSIBLY have made such a bold, improbable prognostication!

August 8, 2012 at 6:48 pm |

vonxx

So true... This is way the Bible says few will enter the kingdom... Just more proof .. (-;

August 8, 2012 at 7:17 pm |

strangeronfire

Lest you forget, also responsible for EVERY SINGLE WAR we have ever fought. Lest you also forget the inquisition and the crusades.

Responsible for murder, that is religion. Responsible for more suffering and bloodshed than any other catalyst that has ever been thought of.

Love my straw man statistics? I loved yours as well.

August 8, 2012 at 8:05 pm |

HWB

You should eat your vomit and become spiritual.

August 8, 2012 at 6:26 pm |

Leroy Jenkins

When I went to school we had nine planets, what do you think of them apples?

August 8, 2012 at 5:39 pm |

Ran

I think the bible has something in common with Pluto. Remember when the bible was 'the word of god' its been since downgraded to 'inspired by god'. HA!

August 8, 2012 at 6:21 pm |

Moogly

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein

August 8, 2012 at 5:37 pm |

Daws

That really doesn't sound like him, I question the authenticity of that quote... As he's said about other quotes: "It was of course a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it" -p.43 Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives.

August 8, 2012 at 6:05 pm |

Stentor

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein

August 8, 2012 at 8:07 pm |

Toosliq

The fact that that skull looks so much like the shape of the continent of Africa proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Creation took place.

You're welcome.

August 8, 2012 at 5:26 pm |

bob

Brilliant powers of deduction ! Thank you.

August 8, 2012 at 5:32 pm |

Toosliq

Yes. And to think it only took me about 30 seconds to conclude! Divine inspiration is truly awesome!

August 8, 2012 at 5:36 pm |

Bus2Furthur

LOL, I like you!

August 8, 2012 at 5:36 pm |

Jed from TN

I like you too, Bus! Funny, though, if the idea that the shape of the skull resembling Africa (which it does to me too) suggests creationism, some of us may have to rethink the idea of the Garden of Eden being located in Mesopotamia, mayn't we?

August 8, 2012 at 6:03 pm |

scientific method

Unfortunately your skull and mine turned to the side and sliced in half also look like the continent of Africa. Remeber for the record, these are photo's of peices from a 130,000 year time segment laid flat and pieced together. These pieces were never actually on ONE creature ever. If you want to think of it as a sign of creationism then I want to state a common basketball looks like Mars therefore GOD created man on Mars and moved us to earth because he needed to add water to make us grow.....LOL Sheeeeesh

August 8, 2012 at 6:21 pm |

Jed from TN

Does that make James Naismith a prophet?

August 8, 2012 at 6:26 pm |

Misshapen

I have a doubleheaded pen1s that looks like Sweden and Norway. Does that mean I'm Scandinavian?

August 8, 2012 at 6:56 pm |

Jed from TN

It might, but it is definitely worth further examination. Be careful how you go about this, though. You may want to explore the possibilities with your doctor or perhaps consult a nearby research university. Some DNA testing should either reveal or disprove your potential Scandinavian heritage. You probably do not want to proceed by taking pictures and looking for feedback on te internet or by sending said pictures to acquantances via phone, especially if you are currently employed as an NFL quarterback or a member of Congress.

August 8, 2012 at 7:23 pm |

God

"The being we call god is merely a pawn working for a powerful and rational force in some far-off galaxy. This force is trying to weed out people who are irrational by seeing who would be stupid enough to believe in his god illusion so easily. Those that believe in this illusion, he will send to eternal damnation and he will deliver the rational beings, those who stoically refused to believe in a god, to heaven." – Nicholas Yee

August 8, 2012 at 5:23 pm |

Rob-Texas

Gee, Ah you must be one a smart a cookie...

August 8, 2012 at 6:05 pm |

Thomas L. Engelhardt

"Science flies us to Mars and beyond...Religion flies you into buildings!!!"

August 8, 2012 at 5:18 pm |

Ceri

Science gives you atom bombs, religion gives you "Love one another."

August 8, 2012 at 5:30 pm |

bob

Science gave us the possibility of nuclear power. Short-sighted, desperate people gave us the atom bomb.

August 8, 2012 at 5:36 pm |

Ohhyeah

Ceri you mean "Love one another - unless you're gay, then you can't eat at Chick Fil-A and we hate you."

August 8, 2012 at 6:15 pm |

NPanonymous

Science gave us the atom bomb, religion gave us war and a reason to use it

August 8, 2012 at 6:23 pm |

paul cos

dont forget,rape,muder,war and the tea party

August 8, 2012 at 7:00 pm |

Jennifer P.

Whatever the case may be, this sounds like a job for Temperance Brennan.

August 8, 2012 at 5:16 pm |

Outsidethebox

I was thinking Chuck Norris. 😉

August 8, 2012 at 5:17 pm |

Michael

I knew it ,Chuck Norris .

August 18, 2012 at 11:49 pm |

MikeE

What makes a creature truly human? Are they inferring that because there were tools nearby that the creature is human and not one of several kinds of apes with human-like features? And all this from a jawbone? It seems to me that some scientist is having a field day making a name for himself/herself on some very flimsy evidence.

August 8, 2012 at 5:10 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"What makes a creature truly human?"

they are not claiming this was a human, but a species similar to human.

August 8, 2012 at 5:23 pm |

Fritz

When you can say with conviction, "I'd like to knock off anyone who doesn't look like me or believe as I do." you'll know you have become truely human. ;op

August 8, 2012 at 11:54 pm |

Jay

I don't think that anyone in this field with the surname of Leakey needs to be worried about making a name for themselves.

August 8, 2012 at 5:31 pm |

sbp

Spoken by someone whose only knowledge of the sujbect is what he skimmed in this story. Thanks for playing.

August 8, 2012 at 7:15 pm |

Outsidethebox

When I hear support of evolution, it raises many questions. Of all the millions of species on this mudball, why have humans been far more progressive than other species? We just landed a vehicle on a world that’s 35 million miles away, yet, there is no other species that is even close to our abilities. So is evolution “selective”? And if so, who’s making the choice.

Now I’ve heard the argument that we are so much more advanced because if we see a threat, we kill it. We, as humans, are not to be outdone. Considering the fact that there are many species that we have had NO contact with, not to mention the species we have yet to discover, this argument falls on deaf ears with me.

Assuming we are the result of chance vs. intelligent design, defies all odds. Am I saying there is a God? I can’t say that because I can’t prove it, just as it cannot be proven that there is no God. But this I feel. Not think…..feel. Something has intervened to bring us to where we are today. If were landing rovers on Mars, I would think the chimp would have at least found a use for the wheel by now. Yes, we are very close to the chimp in some aspects, but in others, we are worlds apart. I don’t think that’s because of luck. Peace to you.

August 8, 2012 at 4:59 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"Now I’ve heard the argument that we are so much more advanced because if we see a threat, we kill it. We, as humans, are not to be outdone. Considering the fact that there are many species that we have had NO contact with, not to mention the species we have yet to discover, this argument falls on deaf ears with me."

poor logic. If there was another species as advanced as us on the planet we would have met it long before you and I even existed.....and indeed we most likely did with neanderthals.......who are no longer with us.

August 8, 2012 at 5:06 pm |

Outsidethebox

As I see your logic as poor. You miss the point. There is a reason no other species is close to us.

August 8, 2012 at 5:08 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"You miss the point. There is a reason no other species is close to us."

not a religious one there isnt, sorry.

August 8, 2012 at 5:14 pm |

Outsidethebox

Cedar, I'm not religious. I never mentioned religion. Sorry.

August 8, 2012 at 5:16 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"Cedar, I'm not religious. I never mentioned religion. Sorry."

the second you talk about some reason why something happened, and say the arguments fall on deaf ears with you, or that you think that chance is too great or something intervened, then you are left with nothing else but religion, what ever language you want to use to describe it, it all boils down to the same thing.

August 8, 2012 at 5:19 pm |

Outsidethebox

Cedar, you are so deperate to call me religious, when that can be the furthest from the truth. We obviously don't see eye to eye and I accept that, why can't you? It's not always black and white. Try thinking outside the box. Peace.

August 8, 2012 at 5:28 pm |

teviet

Outsidethebox: As for why no other species is close, that's a more subtle question and depends on what you mean by "close".

Intelligence is a tricky thing, rather costly and with only minor benefit to a species, until it reaches a certain threshold. Some think that this threshold has to do with being able to communicate concepts of arbitrary complexity through hierarchical language (words, sentences, paragraphs), something most humans can do in early childhood, but only hints of which have been seen in a few other species (chimps, parrots, dolphins).

Once you cross that threshold, intelligence is no longer a niche survival trait; it dominates the subsequent development of a species, at an accelerating rate. So far, it's apparently only happened with humans. In another 10 or 100 million years, maybe a species of bird or octopus or something will reach the threshold and build a civilization of its own. But we won't be around to see it.

August 8, 2012 at 6:14 pm |

Denverly

Evolution by means of natural selection is not chance, otherwise we wouldn't call it "selection".

August 8, 2012 at 5:09 pm |

fds3

You Fail – try reading a book.

– a good example of "unnatural selection" is dog breeds. There are over 100 recognized dog breeds and I am sure you can tell the diffrence between them, right? Well if we were to look at only fossil's of these dogs... with out genomic information... we would conclude that they were separate species.. some probably closely realted. However, the truth is they are all one species that man has selectively bred for different traits. This is unatural selection because a force, man, other than nature is putting pressure on the species to make changes. Dogs are evolution sped up by man. Man uses the variation of innate traits of dogs and breeds them into something else.

-Natural selection is the exact same process, but nature provides the selection. Selective pressure can be a predator, a drought, a disease, or some other event that kills off member of a species. The surviving members have a survial advantage, longer necks, better camoflouge, better immune system.. ect.. After this selective event only those members still alive can breed and pass their genes down to further generations. Take these changes over a vast amount of time and 1 species can diverge into 2,, 3, 4, and more.

August 8, 2012 at 6:02 pm |

Merry

And you still call them dogs, not horses, not camels, not anything new. In this light, if you say humans evolve from apes, then they are different breeds of apes and not humans. Why do you call them humans and not apes?

August 8, 2012 at 7:26 pm |

Lucy

We didn't necessarily require a god to get where we are. But just go ahead and say it, since you seem to be dying to.

August 8, 2012 at 5:17 pm |

Kyle McCartney

I like your post. It's open-minded and full of common sense. If people don't see the rationale then it's really sad. Again, very good post!

August 8, 2012 at 5:18 pm |

Outsidethebox

Thanks Kyle. I've never claimed to have the answers like many think they do. I do stay open-minded. In the grand scheme of things, we are a speck. When it comes to the secrets this universe holds, I don't think we've scratched the surface. Peace to you. 🙂

August 8, 2012 at 5:26 pm |

Robert

Life on earth has evolved towards intelligence because it was programmed to. The first cells were designed in such a way so that the plan of life could unfold over time. Furthermore, the designers of biological life have remained watchful over their experiment, and have nurtured it so it can evolve towards its final destiny - similar to how a farmer nurtures his crops as they go from seeds to full-grown plants. Hope that answers your question!

August 8, 2012 at 5:20 pm |

Outsidethebox

Robert, I think were pretty close to being on the same page. 🙂

August 8, 2012 at 5:23 pm |

Robert

Outsidethebox – you should read the Urantia Book. It explains a lot.

August 8, 2012 at 5:29 pm |

Ceri

Nope, the answer should have been 42.

August 8, 2012 at 5:32 pm |

teviet

Actually there's no real evidence that life is evolving "towards" intelligence, except in a few specific lineages. What there is evidence of is a trend towards greater and greater diversity over time; since intelligence is rare, more diversity means it crops up more often.

It's natural, but a bit egocentric, to say that the purpose of the Universe has been to produce yourself, and point to your existence as evidence of that fact. Based on the numbers, though, it would be fairer to say that the purpose of the Universe is to produce bacteria.

August 8, 2012 at 7:39 pm |

Robert

Outsidethebox – you should read the Urantia Book. It explains a lot.

August 8, 2012 at 5:30 pm |

God

I think I understand..... you're going with God until science figures it out? just to be safe

August 8, 2012 at 5:31 pm |

leonard

Oh, I do think it was chance not intelligent design. Intelligent design is far too childish and simple to be correct.But that being said I’m also sure of the existence of G-D, and we were created by evolutionary chance (that’s the way he does things). It is interesting to see so many different types of hominid is it not?

August 8, 2012 at 5:33 pm |

teviet

Why are we the only advanced species? It's a question of timescales: evolution is so slow compared to cultural development. H. sapiens sapiens has had the run of the planet for about 100,000 years, or 0.001% of the Earth's lifespan. If another intelligent species were to appear on Earth, the chances are miniscule that we would overlap with them.

August 8, 2012 at 5:55 pm |

One one

"So is evolution “selective”? And if so, who’s making the choice."

There probably were other primates that we're very intelligent. But the most capable species eliminated the completion .

Example, Neanderthal man.

Thus, selection was happening and we humans did the selecting .

August 8, 2012 at 5:58 pm |

Kingofthenet

Why just Humans? Look at it THIS way, IF ALL we had were Humans with AVERAGE IQ of 100, we would have a society missing alot of the Technical marvels(and terrors) such as Space Craft, Nuclear Power and Weapons, and many other complex things that require an IQ over 100 to work out, but most 'regular' things would exist. Now IF we take it down to 75 IQ, we would have far less, take it down to 50 IQ ALMOST NOTHING, Now consider the BEST Animal besides man might have a 25 IQ. See the problem for them?

August 8, 2012 at 6:55 pm |

Herman

The natural environment is selective, but only in the sense that the die I roll "selects" the number that appears. There is no "who" involved at all.

If I put a hundred trillion trillion trillion slips in a hat (a damn big hat, admittedly) and draw one at random, the odds that any one slip will be drawn is dauntingly, vanishingly small, and yet such an event is nonetheless certain to happen.

August 8, 2012 at 7:14 pm |

Kyle McCartney

This went from 85 responses to 285 in about an hour. Wow! Everyone's arguing about whether creation and evolution is correction. Does it matter? No. Why? Because we were meant to more forward in life and learn and improve through experience (this is true for both creation and evolution). By trying to figure out if evolution is true or if God exists, we're all wasting time and getting nowhere at all. Doesn't anyone else see this??? There's so much to discover and learn, and we're wasting precious time with nonsense. WHO CARES?

August 8, 2012 at 4:58 pm |

Outsidethebox

It's obvious that we all don't share the same perception as you. I'm sure there a people that said "who cares" when asked if there's anything on mars.

August 8, 2012 at 5:05 pm |

Bruce

I guess who cares is everyone who takes the time to read the posts. Ooopsie, here you are.

August 8, 2012 at 6:00 pm |

ArchieDeBunker

What's really going to be interesting is how the scientists explain it when they finally get sophisticated enough with DNA to find out that all Jewish people have a slight variation in their DNA structure which can't be traced back any further than about 6000 years ago. Or, when computers and measurements become accurate enough to show that the earth is just EVER-SO-SLIGHTLY out of the position it "should" be in. Hint: Go back to your Bible and read about the time the "sun stood still" (actually the Earth stood still) for exactly one-half day, while an ancient battle raged on . . . .

August 8, 2012 at 4:56 pm |

Marv

So the bible was wrong about the sun standing still? What else could be wrong? And how do you know the earth is out of position?

August 8, 2012 at 4:59 pm |

hey

Quite convenient. Your relying on technology that doesn't exist to prove a theory of yours that didn't happen.

August 8, 2012 at 5:02 pm |

JohnW

What, you don't remember that day that the sun stopped moving and the earth was turned to a cinder block shortly after the atmosphere burned away? Where have you been?

August 8, 2012 at 5:43 pm |

Cedar Rapids

haha, sorry, did you really just say when they detect the earth is just slightly not where it should be?
how on earth can they possibly do that? we are whizzing around the sun, as we spiral around as part of the milky way, and as our galaxy zooms through the universe. .....and you think they should one day be able to detect where it 'should be'?
You are living in a dream world.

August 8, 2012 at 5:11 pm |

ArchieDeBunker

One of the really nice things about computers is that they can be made to calculate backward. For example, by knowhing where the Earth is today (in relation to the other planets and the North Star, for example), we can no calculate exactly where the earth was 24.00000 hours ago – or 10.00000 years ago or 1000.000 years ago, etc. Because a half-day is so small compared to the total time that has elapsed since it's creation, even modern computers are probably not capable of doing the calculation back far enough (say, oh, maybe 4500 years or so) to show that the earth really "ought" to be in just a teeny, teeny bit different position than it is actually in. If that powerful a computer is ever built (or used for such an unimportant purpose) it will show exactly that. This would actually be a waste of time, of course, because the only purpose for doing so would be to convince skeptics that the Bible is actually 100% true. And it wouldn't work. Even such a calculation would be dis-believed, because the Bible itself says that most of the people on Earth will not believe the truth even if it is proved to them. Just as the FACT that over 300 people actually saw Jesus after he rose from the dead is denigrated today by those who cannot believe, even if they wanted to, proof of the Earth's having stopped moving for a half-day, as described in the Bible, will not convince those of you with atrophied souls (what you don't use, you lose) to believe in the one thing that might save you.

Science is about questions that should be answered
Religion is about answers that should not be questioned.

August 8, 2012 at 4:53 pm |

UmmNo

You must have a very limited knowledge of the world's different religions. Not all are built on the monotheistic, authoritarian model of Christianity, Judaism, and Is lam, and not all attempt to provide simple dogmas to complicated questions.

August 8, 2012 at 5:02 pm |

Bubba

The concrete, historical evidence of God is the Bible.

August 8, 2012 at 4:22 pm |

sbp

And accordingly, the concrete, historical evidence of Lord Voldemort is the Harry Potter series of books.

You believe in a book because the book says to believe in it and because you were told to believe in it. Your belief is totally a matter of faith, which is not susceptible of proof. Just own up to that, and stop trying to "prove" something that you will never be able to prove.

August 8, 2012 at 4:25 pm |

jen

If there was a " like" button I'd be pushing it repeatedly...

August 8, 2012 at 5:13 pm |

Wanna Know

OMG I want a like button for this post....treasure..and fool....god is just a good and not so good guy in a book too!!

August 8, 2012 at 6:01 pm |

Chris

Maybe the Bible was the Harry Potter of 2000 years ago.

August 9, 2012 at 12:58 am |

Bubba

Lord Voldemort was just a bad guy in a book, fool.

August 8, 2012 at 4:30 pm |

sbp

And so was Satan.

August 8, 2012 at 4:31 pm |

Cedar Rapids

you almost had me bubba until i realised you were trolling. nice one.

August 8, 2012 at 4:31 pm |

Akira

Which BIble,? There are many.

August 8, 2012 at 4:32 pm |

Bubba

The one you were raised on .

August 8, 2012 at 4:35 pm |

ArchieDeBunker

There are many different translations of the Bible. All of them say virtually the same things. The message and meaning of the Bible has not changed even one tiny iota.

Here's a fact you'll enjoy explaining. Back in the 1600's there was a guy named Voltaire, who was a noted scientist, writer and speaker. He was also a person, like many today, who hated Christianity – particularly the book of Christianity which we call the Bible. Voltaire was a very wealthy man, at one point. So wealthy, in fact, that he owned his own printing press, and printed lots of the things he wrote. Including rants and tirades against the Bible and Christianity. On one occasion he wrote that by 50 years after his death there wouldn't be even one copy of the Bible remaining – all would have been destroyed by those who "knew" it was just a bunch of lies and propaganda. Toward the end of his life, Voltaire suffered a sever reversal of fortunes from which he never recovered, and he died penniless. All his possessions were sold at public auction to pay back his creditors. One of the items sold was his printing press. We don't know for sure whether the people who bought the printing press even knew who Voltaire was. One thing we do know, however, is that the very first item that was printed on Voltaire's printing press after he died was a copy of – you guessed it – the Bible! It appears that that God whom all you (tee hee) "atheists" make so much fun of has a pretty neat sense of humor, doesn't it? Perhaps He was the actual author of the statement "Revenge is a dish best eaten cold."

August 8, 2012 at 5:14 pm |

sumday

Well in Gen 1:28 it says "...Be fruitful, and multiply, and REPLENISH the earth...", also in Gen chapter 6 it talks about "sons of G-d" (fallen angels) who left their place in heaven and had kids by humans- it also says these beings were on earth before and AFTER the flood. Bottom line is there is a lot the bible does not say, and a lot that is it skims over. G-d doesn't tell us how he did something only that he did do it. Christ says the last days will be like before the flood, and Song of Solomon says there is nothing new under the sun- that means all this technology that we have today must have existed sometime in the past else the bible and Christ are mistaken.

August 8, 2012 at 4:40 pm |

sbp

"else the bible and Christ are mistaken"...

D'ja think?

August 8, 2012 at 4:42 pm |

Akira

Or maybe that story is simply that, a story.

August 8, 2012 at 4:44 pm |

JT

It's sometimes hard to determine if one is tolling or being sarcastic sometimes since I've heard this same thing from real Christians. Of course you could have used a name other than Bubba to not be so obvious.

August 8, 2012 at 4:42 pm |

sbp

Spot on. Many of the posters here (especially since Fox News cut off comments) would have a hard time writing their name in the dirt with a stick. There is no such thing as a post too stupid to be real.

August 8, 2012 at 4:53 pm |

Norm

LOL...Bubba....read your reply.
So God is just a good guy in a book.
This is why you conservatives look so ignorant.
I bet Akira is a liberal and look how foolish you were made to look.

August 8, 2012 at 4:55 pm |

Akira

Actually, I hate politics. Especially right-wing politics and its stranglehold on American society and intellect.

August 8, 2012 at 8:14 pm |

Willy

Socrates was just a story.

August 8, 2012 at 4:56 pm |

Denverly

Then please check out "The Bible Unearthed" by Finkelstein & Silberman. They were (gasp) Jews who set out to prove the historical accuracy of the Bible through archaeology. Lo and behold, the Jews were never enslaved in Egypt and there was never an "exodus". How's that whole truth thing working out for you?

August 8, 2012 at 5:04 pm |

Robert

The bible wasn't written by God, it was written by men (and a couple women). The laws of nature prove that a CREATOR must exist, but the only proof of a personal God is by knowing Him. When you know God, all those ancient books mean little, because He is present now.

August 8, 2012 at 5:26 pm |

Jim

And Mein Kampf was another book that caused people to believe they were right too because it was convenient and in their interest to believe in it.

August 8, 2012 at 8:41 pm |

Lila

There is such variation with humans today for example when we look at the tallest vs the shortest men on earth. Their skulls and limbs are so different compared to the average human. I always wonder if they find variations of known species. Evolution was probably uneven and messy.

I'm sure this article is well done and interesting to some. Let me summarize, some old bones were found. Experts disagree on what they mean. Might have been kin to people might not have been. Old bones, cool.

It appears you think calling me a high school kid is some kind of insult. Some of those "kids" could run circles around the both of us. Me a high school kid? Thank you. Haven't attended one of those as a student for well over 30 years. thanks again.

August 8, 2012 at 4:50 pm |

maestra730

Belief in God is based on faith AND concrete, historical evidence. (Look it up.) For all of you smug, self-satisfied atheists and agnostics out there who decry religion and spirituality, I'm sorry that the concept of eternity escapes you. You have chosen to place your faith in nothing but science because heck, we all know that scientists never, EVER make mistakes and no scientific theory, once accepted, can ever be disproved. Oh, wait . . .

August 8, 2012 at 4:05 pm |

Cason

Rofl. "look it up". You do realize that most atheists are ex-theists right? We have 'looked it up'.

August 8, 2012 at 4:08 pm |

cw

You have "concrete" evidence of God??? Share it with the world man! Be the light!

August 8, 2012 at 4:12 pm |

Bubba

The concrete historical evidence of God is the Bible.

August 8, 2012 at 4:19 pm |

Jay

Your concrete evidence of God is a book that was written by some guys in a some ancient languages and then assembled by other men who decided which stories to include or exclude based on their desire to control the masses. This book was then translated by other men into what you now call the bible. It seems that you are basing your "proof" on what is at best a bootleged copy. Once you get the digitally remastered version let me know.

August 8, 2012 at 5:42 pm |

Bubba™

Stop stealin' my name, and there's no proof of God's existence, of course. That's why religion is called "faith" instead of "science." It's a basic fact; you must believe despite there being no evidence.

August 9, 2012 at 8:24 am |

Akira

Someone's got a chip on their shoulder. Pray tell, what sort of historical evidence did you have in mind?

August 8, 2012 at 4:13 pm |

Gordon Gekko

I don't think you know what "concrete evidence" means. You should look it up.

August 8, 2012 at 4:13 pm |

neogeo

That is why they call it science. As new information becomes available theories change. Theology on the other hand seems quite fossilized ;-). I will say that science is more interested in the how and theology the why. If we focus on spirituality instead of dogma maybe there needn't be a hate filled argument.

August 8, 2012 at 4:15 pm |

DrJStrangepork

Again.. which religion is the correct one? One must be right and the other's wrong. Please be specific in the correct religion.

August 8, 2012 at 4:15 pm |

Limper

Odin! He promised the end of the ice giants, and it looks to me like he delivered.

August 8, 2012 at 5:52 pm |

Tommy Rabid

How does one find "Concrete, historical evidence" of God? I presume we are to look it up in the Bible? If that is your suggestion, you must see no issue with me using a Spider-man comic to prove he exists as well...

It's not smug to simply say "I don't know if God exists, and I have my doubts" but is a new level of arrogance when people such as yourself not only claim with absolute certainty that he DOES exist, but that he loves you specifically. That is only evidence of a healthy ego!

Like the old saying goes:
Science is questions that may never be answered.
Religion is answers that may never be questioned...

August 8, 2012 at 4:19 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"Belief in God is based on faith AND concrete, historical evidence"

well this should be fun.....do please tell us what 'concrete and historical evidence' of god you have to share with us.

August 8, 2012 at 4:21 pm |

Bubba™

"do please tell us what 'concrete and historical evidence' of god you have to share with us."

He wrote His name in the cement by my swimmin' pool. If that ain't concrete evidence, I don't know what is. Old Mert down at the Bait Shop says it's good enough for him.

August 9, 2012 at 9:03 am |

Mike Strasser

These anti-science arguments remind me of a bit Bill Maher did about how a 14 yrs old "conservative" radio host" can mimic the Limbaughs, Becks and Hannity's of the world. Because, the contemporary conservative argument IS at the level of a 14 yr. old. A 14 yr old cannot mimic someone like Maddow because she's informed, educated and articulate. Something most 14 yr. old are not. Hence, these simplistic radical christian conservatives need to understand they are at the intellectual and emotional level of most 14 yrs olds. Again, I say most, not all 14 yrs olds.

August 8, 2012 at 4:21 pm |

LOL

Yes please do share your concrete evidence casue you will be the first to showit!!! That is the funniest thing I have ever heard and I am not an athiest but even I know how much of joke your sentense is "faith and concrete evidence" WOW!

August 8, 2012 at 4:25 pm |

Bus2Furthur

Oh yeah, well, that's just like your opinion man.......

August 8, 2012 at 5:33 pm |

Hijack_History

If someone designed a beautiful Ferrari then someone must has designed woman.
They are far more beautiful and thee are soooooo many...

WOW....

August 8, 2012 at 4:04 pm |

Bubba™

Like actual automobile machinery, there are many who are built more along the lines of fire trucks and earth movers than sports cars and speed cycles. But even the big ones were somebody's kid sister or little girl once, so yeah, they're all beauties.

August 9, 2012 at 9:06 am |

Hijack_History

Maybe it wasn't an actual bang sound..
Maybe it sounded like...

" WEEEEE ARE ALLLLLL STUPID"

August 8, 2012 at 4:03 pm |

Hijack_History

Wrong ....
Everything came from WALMART or at some point WILL...

August 8, 2012 at 4:01 pm |

Ceri

I think you meant China...

August 8, 2012 at 5:36 pm |

shawbrooke

The bottom line here is that the findings that teachers in my era taught was solid evidence of evolution are now considered untrue. That's a fact.

They might have done better to behave like scientists and recognize the limits of their knowledge. Also to ask students to learn the material rather than demand belief.

August 8, 2012 at 4:00 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"The bottom line here is that the findings that teachers in my era taught was solid evidence of evolution are now considered untrue. That's a fact. "

wait, what solid evidence of evolution is now untrue?

August 8, 2012 at 4:33 pm |

Al

I disagree. It's not all wrong. There has simply been more proof discovered for evolution of humans over these decades and that proof has been informed the puzzle. You're just learning more of why creation accounts in bronze age myths are not true is all...

August 8, 2012 at 4:49 pm |

Al

Better informed is what that should have been. LOL.

August 8, 2012 at 4:50 pm |

Bubba™

" the findings that teachers in my era taught was solid evidence of evolution are now considered untrue. That's a fact. "

No, you've joined a church or cult that disbelieves them. The rest of us normals and citizens still know the truth. Snap out of it. Man, some of you folks are so sad you make me uncomfortable. Why do you feel the need to let us know you are that deluded? Is some minister standing over you?

August 9, 2012 at 9:09 am |

WDinDallas

So much for this monkey business.

August 8, 2012 at 3:57 pm |

Hijack_History

Who cares.... You are just wasting what little time in life we actually have.
Think it might be better if we really help someone else other than throw poop at each other..
Hey wait a minute ... Don't monkeys do that too.
Anywho...
If you are a so called free thinker or scientist looking for answers you will find nothing here.
Shouldn't you be out forwarding the great social move forward with you ideas that make our life better ?
Why don't you go invent the new asbestos so we can keep warm or something to that effect (or is it affect ?)
Also
If you are a God fearing person should you not be out helping others and learning instead of fighting?
"Return evil with evil to no one "
"Love your neighbor as yourself"

Well have a nice day...

August 8, 2012 at 3:54 pm |

Hijack_History

Historically speaking ... from this point on I believe everything is made from aluminum foil.

August 8, 2012 at 4:00 pm |

Nissim Levy

everything is made in China

August 8, 2012 at 4:19 pm |

JP

So if there was a big bang, who created the stuff to create the explosion ? Man tries to be God and create his own reasons for the unknown.... Just think the "scientists" have no idea still on how the human mind stores information !

August 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm |

New Gawker

Where'd the guy who created all the stuff come from?

August 8, 2012 at 3:48 pm |

maestra730

Who says He came from anywhere? It's you who put such finite parameters on time. I feel sorry for you.

August 8, 2012 at 3:56 pm |

WilltheFree

He did not. JP did. He's the one who asked where the stuff from the big bang came from. Why couldn't it have always just been there, according to your timelessness suggestion?

August 8, 2012 at 3:58 pm |

Al

Since we made him up and there's no way you can verify our claims... he came from always being there because he exists outside of the known universe (BTW, none of us have ever seen outside of the known universe either but... we're sure he's outside of there).

August 8, 2012 at 4:53 pm |

JT

Yes, your god lives within the gaps of our knowledge but he's being squeezed more and more within those gaps every day. But..since there will always be gaps in our knowledge, don't worry, your god will always have a place to hang out.

August 8, 2012 at 3:49 pm |

bpuharic

And in 300 years science explained more about the universe than religion did in 3000. You guys didn't even know there WAS a big bang until science discovered it. You didn't know what the earth was, nor the sun. You're playing god of the gaps to hide your failure

August 8, 2012 at 3:50 pm |

Kyle McCartney

HOLD ON!!! Isn't the Big Bang technically called The Big Bang Theory? Hello....the word "THEORY". Oh, and also the science community is re-looking into this theory due to violations into scientific laws. You can find it all on the internet. I'm just here to guide your mind into the incredible world of common sense. Wow, I'm laughing so hard right now.

August 8, 2012 at 4:00 pm |

Eric G

@Kyle:
"re-looking"? Yes, I am sure all of the staff at CERN is RE-LOOKING at the big bang theory all the time.

Science does not look to prove or disprove theories. Science just looks to verify evidence. Evidence is not biased and does not care what a hypothesis claims. Evidence either supports or contradicts claims.

You are laughing so hard because you are un-educated. Pitty.

August 8, 2012 at 4:06 pm |

Kyle McCartney

@Eric G: You hurt me. I thought maybe we can be friends and educate each other (more me because I'm dumb). But you seem angry. Maybe a casual friendship will not be because I'll try to make you laugh, you'll get angry, I'll laugh more, you'll get more angry and punch me. I'll fall but manage to get in a little joke, you'll kick me and send me to the hospital. After a couple of days I'll get out visit you in jail. Laugh at you through the wall, you'll still be mad because you're father beat you when you were 2 years old for spilling his beer. I'll keep on laughing and you'll continue with your anger. Good luck in life.

August 8, 2012 at 4:16 pm |

fintastic

Do you mean the mental hospital?

August 9, 2012 at 2:19 pm |

Eric G

In your post, you present a question to the evidencial support of the big bang theory. Are you suggesting that because you think that their may be a hole in the evidence supporting the big bang theory, all of the evidence supporting the big bang is invalid? Are you also suggesting that because you, as proven by your intellectually childlike grasp of physics, do not understand the big bang theory, it must be wrong and your god must have done it?

Sorry, you will need to present evidence that your god created the big bang. That claim has it's own burden of proof.

Thank you for providing another excellent example of why first cousins should not marry.

So which religion answers that question correctly? There can be only one answer right? Of course if the explanation was that the big bang was initiated by a conscious being, where is the proof that we developed into that being's likeness or that being has (or cares to have) any knowledge of us? Questions... Questions. Religion won't answer origin. It can provide some good on living with one another, but blindly following it or literally following it usually gives bad results.

August 8, 2012 at 4:07 pm |

Wayne

If you drive a car you can get into an accident and someone may die. Therefore do not drive cars. Cars are bad.

" Just think the "scientists" have no idea still on how the human mind stores information" Sorry you still think that. Do you live somewhere with no internet? Long story short, chemical traces in key places in brain cells. Maybe you knew that and forgot?

August 9, 2012 at 9:32 am |

Hijack_History

It would have been done better if the CSI Vegas team reconstructed the bones...
Holy smokes.... looks just like Obama with an Irish sailor tattoo

August 8, 2012 at 3:43 pm |

TedBlair

It's been many years the believers of evolution was talking about an Atom smasher to help reveal 'the beginning'. They spent 4.4 billions in a machine that they said would re-create the world. They failed miserably. Had they succeed, I would not be talking now. The only proof they can show is their multiple failures. Make it work and silence me!

Did it re-create the world? We are still living in the same old world.

August 8, 2012 at 3:44 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"Did it re-create the world? We are still living in the same old world."

what are you on about now?

August 8, 2012 at 4:36 pm |

greg

Keep taking the tablets.

August 8, 2012 at 3:44 pm |

sbp

Don't dabble in things that are way beyond your ability to comprehend.

August 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm |

TedBlair

You guys know how it happened, right? Make it happen happen. Create a new world with your theory and you would not have to work hard to convince people. If you can't, admit you don't know. It's that simple.

August 8, 2012 at 3:50 pm |

I'm ready

Uhhhh....All you have to do is pay attention. Oh, and get an actual education. There are huge amounts of data that support evolution. Surf the web. Go to a library. Go to a museum or two. I know you desperately want to prove your faith, but you should know that many scientists are faithful too. Believe in Creationism if you like, but as in any evolutionary process, you will be left behind, and your kind become extinct. Humans with brains and the the need to quest for the great truths of the universe as given them by the same God you think wants you to adhere to beliefts over 2000 years old are continuing to explore. You are in their rear view mirror. See ya!

August 8, 2012 at 3:53 pm |

JT

Stop lying for Jesus and break out a 2nd grade Science text book instead of that 2000 year old multi-translated bronze age book about talking snakes and ghosts written by primitive sheep herders.

August 8, 2012 at 3:54 pm |

KLARGAR

The stupid in your post is painful what the hell are you talking about. If by chance you are talking about the particle accelerator in Europe called the Large Hadron Collider it appears that they have indeed found evidence of the Higgs Boson, inforamlly known as the God particle. FYI the reason it is known as the God particle is that originally it was called the goddammed particle because it was difficult to find without the incredible high energy obtained with the new accellerator and the scieentists who postulated its existence did not want to insult idiots like you so they changed its name. All that aside it has nothing to do with biological evolution, nothing got that imbicile.

What's your point? If you are arguing that scientific research has no merit... well... I'll just assume that you're not since you are doing it over a computer and on the Internet. If you are arguing that the money would have been better spent elsewhere, well maybe you have a point. But then you have to discuss what dollar amount does go to science to advance civilization regardless of whether that money would do better elsewhere by some measurement.

And so you are aware, we can't leave this planet until we have a more fundamental understanding of our universe. So if you plan to be around for a while, or have kids and have them around for a while, then I would suggest that you support science as much as possible.

August 8, 2012 at 3:56 pm |

JS

Who is 'they' and when/where did 'they' say they would 're-create the world'?

Uhm, Ted.. it was never supposed to "recreate the world". Your failure to understand a simple concept doesn't mean they are the ones who are wrong.

August 8, 2012 at 4:13 pm |

Lucy

Ted seems to be having a hard time with logic. Lack of education, or a mild stroke? Not sure.

August 8, 2012 at 4:40 pm |

Bubba™

" They spent 4.4 billions in a machine that they said would re-create the world. They failed miserably." Um, they split the atom back in the 1940s. Remember Hiroshima? When did anyone except Doctor Zorg in the Superman comic book ever claim they had an "atom-smasher" that would " re-create the world?" Are you trying to talk about particle accelerators and the Higgs boson particle search? You should, as they say in Ankh-Morpork, LEARN THE WORDS. If we knew everything about the Higgs particle, which, by the way, is NOT god and doesn't claim to be, we might be a hundred years away from discovering anti-gravity. We might be hours away, but I'd bet on decades.

August 9, 2012 at 9:38 am |

Daniel in Denver

Thanks for the great article, Elizabeth. I'm significantly less ignorant that I was when I started reading.

Just thought you might like to see a post that was actually about your article, rather than fundamentalists vs. evolutionists.

Please keep up the good work, and how nice it is to see an author of an article actually participating in the comments.

August 8, 2012 at 3:35 pm |

Bubba

Daniel in Denver, bad news: You're not going to score with the author, so lay off the brownie points.

August 8, 2012 at 4:05 pm |

Daniel in Denver

Bubba. Truly sorry for whatever it is in your life that's made you such a bitter and cynical person. I hope things improve for you. D in D

August 8, 2012 at 4:10 pm |

Bubba

Thanks Daniel, but I was just joking around! Ease up I'm sure she got a kick out of it.

August 8, 2012 at 4:15 pm |

Daniel in Denver

Well, in that case – thanks. Sometimes we all need to lighten up. I reckon it was my turn. Have a large day!

August 8, 2012 at 4:20 pm |

I'm The Best!

I like almost all the articles she writes on here, most the ones I find interesting I'll read and then see she wrote it. Always informative and interesting.

August 8, 2012 at 4:22 pm |

Bubba

Hey Mr. Best, you ain't gonna score either!

August 8, 2012 at 4:32 pm |

OldCentrist

Well put.

August 8, 2012 at 5:21 pm |

Wayne

Evolutionists here are criticizing the creationists for being uneducated with respects to evolution. However, the evolutionists seem to be equally uneducated with respects to the bible. There are plenty of well established facts found in the bible and there is a science to support it. It is called archeology. There is also secular historical records to support the existence of the people and corroborate the events mentioned in the bible. The bible is filled with detailed genealogies and timelines of events that have been questioned by scholars, but have been supported by later discoveries (e.g. the historicity of Pontius Pilate). And please . . . the bible in no place says that the earth was created in a period of only 6 24-hour days (144 hours)

August 8, 2012 at 3:23 pm |

bpuharic

Really? Evidence for the bible? Like the "Exodus" of the Hebrews from Egypt...

Which never happened? One of the biggest events described in the OT...and it never happened. Oh well...

August 8, 2012 at 3:24 pm |

Wayne

Hmmm since you can state with all certainty that it never happened I can only assume that you have been alive for several thousands years living in Egypt. Obviously, you do not read history books on the subject.

August 8, 2012 at 3:30 pm |

bpuharic

OK go ahead, post the evidence for the Exodus. We'll wait.

August 8, 2012 at 3:34 pm |

shawbrooke

As more archaeological evidence comes to light, more and more comments in the Bible are corroborated with physical evidence. I have no idea whether the Exodus is one of them, but caution people to take care, because lots of things were found in records when previously they were thought to be allegorical. There are people who believe that some liberal theological schools have been caught out. Wayne's comments are prudent.

August 8, 2012 at 3:49 pm |

bpuharic

The Exodus, as described in the bible, would have been one of the greatest mass movements in history at that time, encompassing over a million people. There is not a single shred of evidence. Not a speck. If it DID happen it was done by flying saucers moving through warped spacetime because there's NO evidence of it EVER happening on earth. None.

August 8, 2012 at 3:52 pm |

shawbrooke

Now, bupharic, weren't the Israelites in the Bible a minority in Egypt? Didn't peoples move all the time to escape famines? Little is known about the movements of ancient peoples, except that there were many movements. In North America, DNA shows that peoples in certain regions at the time of contact with Europeans are often not related to the bones left behind by their "ancestors". "must have" is a pretty tenuous concept based on unproven assumptions.

August 8, 2012 at 4:05 pm |

Belloq

How about talking burning bushes? Or putting two animals of every species on a boat. Or spreading a sea with a stick?
Virgin births? Sure, happens every day.

August 8, 2012 at 3:34 pm |

Wayne

How about putting a million songs in your back pocket, or talking to someone on the other side of the world, how about seeing at night . . . happens every day. These things would seem impossible to someone who doesn't understand the technology or natural laws that make them possible. Just because you do not understand how something took place does not mean that it is not possible. Try explaining bluetooth technology to a native american indian 500 years ago. Or an ipod to a shepherd 1,000 years ago. They would think it were impossible. But, you would just consider them as being ignorant . . .

August 8, 2012 at 3:40 pm |

bpuharic

OK tell me how a primitive society 6000 years ago put every species of animal on a wooden boat.

We'll wait for your answer. Which will not be forthcoming.

August 8, 2012 at 3:45 pm |

shawbrooke

What physical remnants are you expecting? The burning bush did not likely leave any evidence behind. Something like that can neither be physically disproved or proved. A little respect for each other's beliefs or lack of them would go a long way.

August 8, 2012 at 3:53 pm |

Wayne

Actually it wasnt a society that put all those animals in a boat it was one guy his wife, his three sons and their wives, with the help of a an extra terrestial life form that is far more powerful than us. Life comes from life. Something or someone caused the big bang, something or someone designed the laws that make the universe work. You do not have to believe that if you chose not to. But, I certainly do not think that it is my responsibility to convince you of the logic behind that. You are more than welcome to believe as you chose.

August 8, 2012 at 4:00 pm |

SHILOH

@bpuharic. First of all it was not 2 of every animal. Actually it was more. There were animals for sacrifice and for consumption. But to answer your question. You get that many animals on a gigantic ship the same way you get 10000 dogs on to a school bus. ....Here is the part where God wants you to use your brain......You take them when they are babies. Now how simple was that.

August 8, 2012 at 4:08 pm |

Satan

Wayne, the bible indeed says that the timeframe of creations were measured in "days". (ie: "...and on the first day..., ...second day..., third day...., ..fourth day..., fifth day..., sixth day..., ...seventh day... rested...." ! You need to reverify what you say here if you want to be credible. Also, why wouldn't God be able to make the Earth and all that is "good" in it in six days?

August 8, 2012 at 3:35 pm |

Wayne

Read my post carefully. The bible does say that the earth was created in 6 days. But it does not say it was referring to 24 hour periods. In fact it also says that the earth was created in "a day." The term day is used to describe a division of periods of time. We still use the word in that sense now-a-days. (What does now-a-days mean? think about it) Ever heard of the expression "back in the day of . . .", In my grandfather's day. . . The word is used to reference a nonspecific period of time. The Genesis account is not attempting to layout the period of time that the events took place in, but instead it is describing the ORDER of the events that took place.

August 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm |

laurie

The word for 'day' in Hebrew is yom and means a 24 hour period. The word yom was translated from Hebrew to Greek to English. If you read the Holy Scriptures in Greek, you would know that! The Lord spoke the heavens and the earth into existence. Look around...how can a sane person not believe in a Creator? Does not matter what we think, only what the Lord says....every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess! What a great day that will be!

August 8, 2012 at 4:12 pm |

literate

Wayne – well said. If you look at the creation story in the Bible, it clearly supports the order of evolution. First heaven/earth, then light, then....man being the last. It does not specify days as 24 hour periods but rather phases. Makes sense to me.

August 8, 2012 at 4:34 pm |

jazger

or even better – whom did Adem and eves children.. marry?

if this "god" person created Adam and eve.. who did their children marry and have more kids with?

they would have had to marry and have kids with thier own sisters and brothers wouldn't they? no wonder the bible doesn't really mention that to much.. rather sick to believe the human race was founded in acts of incest. though that might explain why we're so messed up.

August 8, 2012 at 3:39 pm |

Wayne

They married their brothers and sisters (yes that is in the bible) Incest turned into a sin when God turned it into a sin, prohibiting it in the Laws given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, shortly after the . . . Exodus.

August 8, 2012 at 4:04 pm |

xirume

If Steven King’s “The Stand” were to become a holy book 3000 thousand years from now, there would be plenty of Archeological evidence that New York and Vegas were real, but that does not mean Randal Flagg ever existed. Fictional tales leave no bones behind.

August 8, 2012 at 3:40 pm |

sbp

And accordingly, because there really WAS a city of Troy that WAS destroyed by the Greeks, HERCULES really existed as a man-god, and Achilles really was invincible except for his heel.

Do you have any idea how trite your "argument" (and I use that term exceedingly loosely) sounds? On purely the basis of logic theory alone, it fails completely. Whether you are a believer or not, this argument is not support.

August 8, 2012 at 3:42 pm |

greg

Many works of fiction such as the bible contain some factual content. Shakespeare and Dickens are other writers who included some facts in their fictional writings.

August 8, 2012 at 3:42 pm |

Wayne

Shakespeare and Dickens do not claim to have been the works of God. They claim to be fiction and are accepted as such. The bible claims to be a book of history (which you can study and corroborate at times through archeology and extra-biblical accounts) and prophecy (which you can accept or reject based upon your theology).

August 8, 2012 at 3:56 pm |

scientific method

When you consider there are Babalonian texts and other texts which pre-date the Bible or the early Jewish culture by 1K yrs telling the same old testiment stories, repeating the "rising son of god" mythos, "the flood story", in great detail which was only reproduced in the Bible years later and attached to Abrahams children it really needs to go deeper than ONE book that's only archailogical support is that yes those cities existed, yes some of the events such as famine and war stories were recorded by other societies at the time. The evolutionists point of view is you have to apply the SAME logic and line of questioning authenticity to the Bible as you do to the science of Evolution. The bottom line is the Bible was written by many different men (inspired or not by the holy spirit) in different languages and then translated and edited if not gutted by the council of Nicea 2 times prior to 400 AD. Each of these actions of translations and inclusionary/ exclusionary editing can all be attributed to political and financial posturing at the time as the most important influence. The miracles attributed to the Bible have NO evidence outside this ONE book unless you include all the other religions at the time and include their exact stories which the Bible mimics. At that point you have to ask "what came first"? right?

August 8, 2012 at 3:42 pm |

jazger

the flood/atlantas myth is just a carry over, or.. racial memory, from the destruction of much of humanities first cultures at the end of the last ice age. sonar and such show that many coastal areas have sunken villages, the mediterranean is filled with them in areas that 10-20k years ago would have been above sea level before the ice age ended and the water level rose.

the icde age ended.. the water levels rose and much of what humanity had acheived at the time was washed away.

August 8, 2012 at 3:51 pm |

shawbrooke

Some people like corroborating evidence and if so, then the many stories of the flood would tend to corroborate each other. It would not matter what was written down first. The Bible confirms the understandings of the Jewish people about that event. That the Bible represents one understanding does not make it untrue. Why exactly the existence of the same event in many cultures takes away from any of the accounts is a mystery to me, unless someone has an axe to grind.

August 8, 2012 at 3:57 pm |

KyleGlobal

I could sit here and write a fairy tell and include a lot of facts about New York City and Bush and Obama. Just because I wrote factually about New York City, Bush, and Obama does not mean the supernatural part of my fairy tale is true.

August 8, 2012 at 3:42 pm |

Noah

Hey moron, as an Archaeologist I can personally tell you that no, my science is not the study of biblical ideas as if they were facts, my science studies the history of the human race in regards to the artifacts our ancestors left behind. For instance, my specialty is the Indus Valley in India, now how is that linked to the bible exactly?

August 8, 2012 at 3:51 pm |

Dan W

Science and Christianity cannot coexist. They cant. We are learning more and more every day about the fascinating realities of our world and the cosmos, but for some reason Christianity is still prevalent. Oh yeah...thats right...people are scared they might be bored or lonely in the grave so they create things like Christianity. Its kinda a crutch for the weak and closed-minded unfortunately.

Too bad the Bible still got lots of things wrong, including historical facts and locations... and there is no proof at all for anything supernatural described in the bible.

August 8, 2012 at 4:15 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"There are plenty of well established facts found in the bible and there is a science to support it. It is called archeology."

Archeology can sometimes verify people, places, sometimes dates, but it isnt going to verify a person walked on water.
It seems people want to claim that because this person existed therefore this miracle happened, and it simply doesnt work that way.

August 8, 2012 at 4:41 pm |

SpotOn

OK, so given the statement, "The sun will rise tomorrow and the Magic Pizza Monster will bring joy and peace" must be true since it contains a fact. Right? While we're at it, excluding the bible (which was written 200 years after your god was born), name one other source where said god was mentioned. You'd think someone so important would have been all over the news and not just in a book of mythology.

August 8, 2012 at 5:26 pm |

The Dude

You mean the genealogies where the book of Matthew and the book of Luke can't even get it right? They are different starting with Jesus' grandfather back. Nice try.

August 8, 2012 at 5:09 pm |

fintastic

@wayne "There are plenty of well established facts found in the bible and there is a science to support it."

Please provide the "well established facts" and scientific evidence to support the resurection of Jesus and the exsistance of god.............

We're waiting....

August 9, 2012 at 2:55 pm |

fintastic

@wayne "There are plenty of well established facts found in the bible and there is a science to support it."

Please provide scientific evidence to support the resurrection of jesus as stated in your bible.

August 9, 2012 at 3:03 pm |

fintastic

@wayne "There are plenty of well established facts found in the bible and there is a science to support it."

Please provide scientific evidence to support the res – urre- ction of jesus as stated in your bible.

August 9, 2012 at 3:05 pm |

Karl from Scottsdale

Question for you 'evolutionists'; from what did monkeys evolve?

August 8, 2012 at 3:17 pm |

bpuharic

What do monkeys have to do with humans? We didn't evolve from monkeys.

August 8, 2012 at 3:19 pm |

Kyle McCartney

Of course we did. It says so in all the elemintary books. Thta's wear I lerned everythink abuot live and the hole worled. Yeahh for evloutions.

August 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm |

Belloq

and "elemintary" is where he learned to spell also..

August 8, 2012 at 3:37 pm |

Rae

maybe the evolutionists are still monkeys

August 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm |

Shane

A different animal. Possibly one of the same ones we descended from.

August 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm |

Kris

Congress?

August 8, 2012 at 3:26 pm |

bpuharic

More specifically, conservative Republicans

August 8, 2012 at 3:27 pm |

sbp

From lower forms of primates, such as ancestors of lemurs. What made you think this was a complicated answer? This isn't rocket science.

August 8, 2012 at 3:28 pm |

Patrick

That would involve rockets!

August 8, 2012 at 4:47 pm |

jazger

Monkies? they evolved from – proto-monkies basicly.. the evolutionary chain is far to complex to list on this site. and one can find many sites dealing with it in far grater detail.

long and short – single cells spawned in the primordial soup... and they grew, they mutated and became new species. these species breed and had babies.. these babies over millions of year grew into a wide range of diffrent species, each adapted to its enviroment and food source.

a far more believable orgin myth than some invisable sky wizard created two humans, had thier kids commit incest to make more babies and found the human race..

personaly, evolution is a lot more comforting than haveing my species founded by Adam and Eves children haveing kids with each other. that always sounded like an excuse for folks ot marry thier sisters to me.

August 8, 2012 at 3:36 pm |

bam

funny how the word EVOLVE was used to deny humans from monkeys.
when u deny fossil history u have to say humans were created, u dont use evolved cuz u let seep out that u have no clue what your talking about and just spewing something some religious ignorant told u

August 8, 2012 at 3:41 pm |

Patty

Monkeys evolved from the same ancestor that humans did, all primates evolved from a common ancestor. You should try talkorigins (dot) org for any evolution questions you're confused about. You're welcome 🙂

August 8, 2012 at 3:44 pm |

M. Nelson

Democrats

August 8, 2012 at 3:47 pm |

scientific method

Kyle – We did not evolve from monkeys the theroy says we evolved from primates. Primates are everything from Chimps, to monkeys to gorillas to orangatan's etc....these are all very different groups of primates. The human decendant being one of a more ancient primate line that may have been the anscestor of chimps or gorillas yes but we did not evolve from monkeys at all. I know this is hard for you to understand.

Carl – Your spelling really takes away from an already silly sarcasm. I wasn't sure it could get any lower but the poor English seems to have done it for me.

August 8, 2012 at 3:53 pm |

Karl from Scottsdale

Funny, coming from someone who can't tell the difference between Karl with a K or a C!

August 8, 2012 at 5:46 pm |

JS

Their ancestors.

August 8, 2012 at 4:06 pm |

Emilio R Garcia Jr

Biodiversity! That is the key!

August 8, 2012 at 3:15 pm |

Rae

If we evolved then shouldn’t we be getting smarter? It sure does not look to be the case here with so many idiots making dumb comments.

August 8, 2012 at 3:13 pm |

jazger

well rough estimates say that humanitys brain size has changed little in the last 70,000 years or so..

which on the time scale of evolution is nothing.. we can expect little natural change for another few hundret thousand years or so.

August 8, 2012 at 3:54 pm |

Mike

@Rae – Thats actually a good question. Some of the prevailing scientists who are attempting to tackle this question, Believe that we have essentially reached the peak of brain size, for a number of reasons.

1) If the brain were bigger, without the rest of humans becoming larger, giving birth naturally would practically be impossible. The birthing canals would be too narrow. C-sections would have to become absolute standard for births.

2) Your brain consumes about 20% of the energy you intake in a day. increasing the size of the brain would require larger amounts of energy to run it, meaning more, or more efficient energy-giving food sources.

3) Larger brains would increase the gestation period, and/or require longer periods of intensive caregiving after a baby is born. The larger brain would need more time to develop, leaving the baby vulnerable for a longer period of time.

4) Keeping in mind that we dont use 100% of our brain for "knowledge" (much of the usage are for things like, spacial recognition/reasoning,, sensor/motor skills, breathing...things that you do subconsciously), any increase in brain size would not produce an equal increase in brain power. In fact, it would likely only be a small fraction of an increase.

These all are kind of negative steps evolutionarily. Thus, larger brains most likely will not occur, because evolutionarily, it is an inefficient change, and does not prove to necessarily be "a desired trait" that would be bred into our gene pool.

August 8, 2012 at 4:42 pm |

Cedar Rapids

evolution doesnt automatically mean getting smarter either.

August 8, 2012 at 4:47 pm |

Bubba™

"If we evolved then shouldn’t we be getting smarter?" I think our top minds today are sharper on the average than fifty years ago. The rest of us are still watchin' tv and specializing in general non-specialization.

August 9, 2012 at 11:26 am |

Question

Why by 2064???

August 8, 2012 at 3:11 pm |

Sandman

Why indeed. Nothing else to indicate that it was anything but arbitrary.

August 8, 2012 at 3:17 pm |

Luke

Incredibly flat face... a bigger brain case ... If i didnt know better I would think you are describing my buddy Randy. Maybe you should talk to him and see if any of his big headed relatives ever lived in Africa

August 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm |

JA

Nice point Larry. Not all human skulls have the same shape, size, or features. Ive seen african american people that closely resemble gorillas. Im sure within a couple hundred years, archealogical evidence will support the fact that gorillas had funerals.

August 8, 2012 at 3:44 pm |

Animal

JA, your mom closely resembles a gorilla.

August 9, 2012 at 11:23 am |

Kyle McCartney

Evolution is 100% true. How do I know? Everyone here evolved from an egg and sperm. Trees and plants evolved from seeds. XBox evolved from Atari. Computers evolved from Adam computer. Corporations evolved from factories. Cars evolved from horse and buggies. Bikes evolved from people too lazy to walk. Planes evolved from people too lazy to drive. Space shuttles evolved from people too lazy to fly.

August 8, 2012 at 3:09 pm |

John

I certainly hope you are kidding with this post....otherwise you have no clue what evolution is....

August 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm |

Kyle McCartney

If it gave someone a chuckle, then that's all that matters. Life's too short not to laugh more. Any Yes, I was joking. 🙂

August 8, 2012 at 3:24 pm |

Yup

He has a good point. It is called a metaphor, John. The internal mechanism for biological evolution may be different from technological evolution, but the forces of nature and the need to survive and improve apply to both.

August 8, 2012 at 3:56 pm |

bam

um hold up there son.... the Adam was a broken branch of the PC tree... NOTHING evolved from an Adam.
If you are trying to follow the MAC tree then u need to go to the Radio Shack Color Computer which used the 6809 processor and its OS9 Unix code... this was what MACs came from the 6800x series chip set.

August 8, 2012 at 3:44 pm |

Kyle McCartney

What???!!!! The Adam was a broken branch??? Really?? Damn, I need to rethink this. This is not good, not good at all. My entire premises is based on this knowledge (or lack of). This is not a good day in McCarneyville. I appreciate your guidance.

August 8, 2012 at 4:06 pm |

rosie

I am sorry but that picture looks fake to me. I have been to dinosaur museums with better displays than that.

August 8, 2012 at 3:06 pm |

sbp

Hmm....seeing as I'm not a paleontologist, I don't think I have the expertise to question its authenticity. And apparently no experts seeing this have stepped forward - other than you, of course.

August 8, 2012 at 3:17 pm |

elandau

Hi Rosie – this is very much a reconstruction, not the fossils as they were found.

Thanks for reading!

Elizabeth Landau, CNN

August 8, 2012 at 3:28 pm |

Cedar Rapids

thats the computer generated picture they created from the fragments that you are looking at there, thats why it looks 'fake'

August 8, 2012 at 4:50 pm |

james

When you stop to think how smart, even insects are, and how smart animals are, people seem pretty stupid. Only a few of us have a brain.

August 8, 2012 at 3:05 pm |

carboncow

Well you typing here proved at least one human is pretty stupid...

August 8, 2012 at 3:11 pm |

bird man

So you think insects are smart. Low self esteeme? Your comment was so stupid I thought a fly wrote it. Buzzzz away.

August 8, 2012 at 3:17 pm |

Reptilian

We have created what you humans are today. We have been manipulating your DNA for thousands of years.
The gods that your religions follow, are of the anchient aliens gods that have been visiting Earth over several thousand years. We are not here to be worshipped. Just trying to save your planet without upsetting the laws of creation.
Soon your Governments will share what has been known for a few decades. We exist! You must learn to love and accept your fellow humans. Do not continue to follow the false teaching of the many religions. They all teach hate.
Your technology now allows you to see what really exists behind the scenes. Lead, do not follow.
Yerr – Pleiadians

August 8, 2012 at 2:53 pm |

rosie

Rational thought also teaches you to see behind the scenes. No need for technology.

August 8, 2012 at 3:07 pm |

Caveman

If all the humans on the planet originated from one place.. why the drastic difference in bone structure, not only that, if again all humans crawled out of the Tigras and the Euphrates river, how come none of the "knew" about each other? .. To me, I smell BS, and I think that there were several types of humans on Earth in the beginning, originating from different areas from DNA that was scattered around the globe in the beginning. How could one species not "know" about another, if all humans originated from one place on Earth? ... I think it's time all of you realized that Darwin is correct in that all humans do evolve and are still evolving, but Darwin didn't account for different types of humans originating from different parts of the globe at around the same time. Something isn't right here...

August 8, 2012 at 3:08 pm |

scientific method

Did you read the article? The author states that their is "atleast" two pre-human subspecies from which our history needs to be figured out and linked to. If you take the fact that Neanderthal and Cro-magnon branches existed side by side and have now been proven to have made offspring. This is just more of the same thing only from an earlier time in our lineage.

August 8, 2012 at 3:13 pm |

jazger

much like we have many different breeds of cats, dogs, horses and such.

humanty its self had many breeds. Some successeded, other failed. some inter breed, some died off. that and the shear fraactal pattern of DNA can and does result in the wide range of humans today. Add in diffrent food sources and climates.. and its easy to see why people vary so much.

August 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm |

mixed breed

We could have benefited from your designing had you not instilled genetic isolation into human religions.

Now we have huge population segments with the mentality of a toy poodle.

August 8, 2012 at 3:28 pm |

sbp

Zoltan!

August 8, 2012 at 3:30 pm |

bpuharic

No, it's Mormons. We all get our own planet after we die, you know

August 8, 2012 at 3:33 pm |

MashaSobaka

Every time I see someone in these forums go "Hey, they found new evidence and had to revisit their hypotheses, so the whole thing is obviously made up," I cringe a little bit for the future. What would happen if one of those people became a doctor? "I thought your headaches were caused by dehydration, but it looks like you have a brain tumor. ...But that can't be right. So just keep drinking water." Or a detective? "We thought that guy might have robbed the shop, but new evidence suggests that it was this other guy. But we have to go with our original theory or it will mean that we don't know what we're doing. So go ahead and arrest the innocent dude. We have to save face."

August 8, 2012 at 2:49 pm |

Alpa Chino

Let 'em teach creationism in schools, and you can expect that scenario to become reality.

August 8, 2012 at 2:57 pm |

sbp

Well said. But you have to understand that science is by it's nature adaptive, and religion by its nature is immutable. So learning from experience is a foreign concept.

August 8, 2012 at 3:44 pm |

Wobbles

There is no proof that God exists–nor is there proof that He does not exist. Big bang or God fart–take your choice, either equally plausible.

August 8, 2012 at 2:46 pm |

sqeptiq

There is scientific evidence for the BIg Bang; there is none for a "God."

August 8, 2012 at 2:52 pm |

Karl from Scottsdale

The 'big bang' theory mathematically, concludes that the 'big bang' started from NOTHING. This contradicts the 1st principal of logic, i.e., the Law of Non-Contradiction that states "A cannot be A and non-A in the same relationship at the same time. Since in order for something to go 'bang' it must exist first: it can't be NOTHING! Moron!

August 8, 2012 at 3:15 pm |

bpuharic

Well, no it doesn't. The big bang says our laws of physics break down at about 10 E(-40) seconds. we have no idea what happened before that. And, no, not everything has a cause. Sorry. Another reason religion is false.

August 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm |

bird man

Damn!

August 8, 2012 at 3:19 pm |

TAK

Actually, quantum physics states exactly that. At the quantum level (which is all that existed 13.7 billion years ago) a particle can be in state A and state ~A simultaneously. Time to go back to school, Logic-Boy. And while you're there, ask your professor about Schroedinger's Cat.

August 8, 2012 at 3:33 pm |

Keith

Do you have a point? This article is about human ancestry.

August 8, 2012 at 2:52 pm |

Jerome Haltom

Not having evidence for either does not mean they are equal probability.

August 8, 2012 at 3:04 pm |

Shane

Science does not deal with the existance or non-existance of God, science only deals with what is tangible and therefore cannot make any conjectures or commentations on the existance or non-existance of God.

August 8, 2012 at 3:31 pm |

bpuharic

Depends. If someone is stupid enough to say 'we can test god's existence because the earth is 6000 years old', then, yes god can be tested. Of course, no one is THAT stupid...

August 8, 2012 at 3:33 pm |

jazger

personaly.. i prefer the big bang.. its a lot more comforting than a creation myth that requires incest to found the species... after all.. whom did adam and eves children marry/have kids with?

hmm?

August 8, 2012 at 3:57 pm |

Richard

How long must the myth endure that everyone originated out of a common ancestor in Africa and that life didn't appear in Asia at the same time?

August 8, 2012 at 2:43 pm |

sqeptiq

Until some evidence supporting that theory is found.

August 8, 2012 at 2:53 pm |

Ken

Mitochondrial DNA shows beyond a doubt that we all have a common ancestor.

August 8, 2012 at 3:52 pm |

LJJ

Actually there are two major theories:. 1) Humans originated in Africa and then gradually migrated out. At the time the continents were one land mass, or were covered in enough ice to allow travel from one continent to another.
2) Humans did not originate in Africa, but instead evolved separately (and similarly) throughout the world at approximately the same time.
Archaeological evidence supports the first theory as being more accurate. And for those who think that people who work in these fields (Anthropologists, etc) are just guessing and are uneducated, then you are totally naive! Most if not all of these professionals have doctorate degrees! YES REALLY! Than means they ARE doctors in their field of expertise. If a person actually wants to know the how/why evolution is so widely accepted take a college course, and find out for yourself, instead of spewing uneducated, ignorant responses! Also evolution DOES NOT contradict religion, and many churches, including the Catholic church, accept it.

August 8, 2012 at 3:54 pm |

Jkhur

Aren't "Greys" supposed to have enlongated skulls and very flat faces? Hmmm.....

August 8, 2012 at 2:43 pm |

Belloq

As much as I have admired the Leaky's, finding a skull in 1972 and matching it with a more recent find is not a complete skull and although it may fit, it's not proof of a new human ancestor. It's not on the degree of the fraud of Piltdown man that was perpetrated, but they should keep looking. The fact that there are several branches of ancestors is not a surprise. The fact that people still question evolution and still believe in a powerful imaginary friend that doesn't do anything, is!!!

August 8, 2012 at 2:43 pm |

NAB

Mr.von Daniken would be pleased that they found the chariot driver's nogg'in...... now onto more important things .. like the K-Stew\R_Patz rift.....

August 8, 2012 at 2:42 pm |

xirume

Excellent !!

August 8, 2012 at 3:47 pm |

TedBlair

Both evolution and creation require faith. You can't prove either. Except that the Bible provides more materials that we can relate with as human creatures. The seven-day week cycle, night and day, the primary food for humans was fruit and vegetables. Science now proves that fruit and vegetables are a healthier lifestyle,etc. All laws in every country are based on the ten commandments. We jail people for stealing, killing. And so on. I find more evidence to believe in creationism.

August 8, 2012 at 2:42 pm |

MashaSobaka

Religions were invented by man. So it kind of makes sense that they would identify more with our habits. The difference between evolution and creationism is that evolution has hard evidence and creationism has hearsay and myth. I'll take the theory with evidence, thanks.

August 8, 2012 at 2:44 pm |

ping

There is no evidence at all that one species ever evolved into another. None. Zero. If you have some, I'd love to see it because I have looked, and none exists that I can find. Given the absence of this, it begs the question of our origin.

August 8, 2012 at 2:53 pm |

sqeptiq

Ping, you are either willfully blind or just lazy. There are literally libraries full of such evidence. Use some initiative and study biology; you can't see what you don't look at. Start with "on the Origin of Species" and actually read it rather than having someone tell you it's just lies.

August 8, 2012 at 2:59 pm |

Alpa Chino

Ping, for proof you need reading comprehension, and the capacity for logic and research. I know that stuff is hard. But maybe you can give it a try sometime.

August 8, 2012 at 3:00 pm |

sbp

Ping, if you have looked and not seen any evidence of evolution, you are blind as a bat. Which, by the way, evolved echolocation.

August 8, 2012 at 3:33 pm |

sbp

The simple truth is people like Ping don't WANT to see proof, and accordingly, he very intentionally has not looked for any.

But he'll jump at believing Pat Robertson getting on TV and saying "Evolution says man evolved from chickens – I've never seen a person with a man's head and a chicken's body. Evolution makes no sense..." (I actually saw him say this on TV about 30 years ago).

August 8, 2012 at 3:35 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"There is no evidence at all that one species ever evolved into another. None. Zero. If you have some, I'd love to see it because I have looked, and none exists that I can find."

you know that have practically a complete line for whales right?

August 8, 2012 at 4:53 pm |

ping

It looks like comprehension is not your-all's strong points. I said there is no evidence, at all, that one species ever evolved into another species. I do believe that evolution happens within a species. But there is no evidence that the species evolved into another. With all the millions of years of life on this planet, and all the species that exist, you would think somewhere, there would be fossilized evidence of the entire process where a species started at one thing, then all the intermediary steps, then it turned into something else. Just one. I am just looking for 1 example with hard evidence that this happened. I'll wait....

August 8, 2012 at 5:21 pm |

nods

ping – have you ever notice that offspring strongly resemble, carry forward, the combined DNA of their parents? Now imagine a group of animals are isolated off from those of their or original origin. Those animals eventually evolve and take on their own unique traits. (like at the differences between different races of humans). Now let that DNA have a few million years of minor changes at each reproduction cycle. Time is a funny thing.

August 9, 2012 at 9:51 am |

Farscape

I’m afraid you are mistaken. These same types of laws have existed since before the ‘10’ commandments (there were a lot more than 10 btw) were supposedly written.

August 8, 2012 at 2:44 pm |

TedBlair

You also admit that the men living more than a couple of thousand years ago were smarter. Then they knew fruit and vegetables are a helathier lifestyle that scientist have finally admitted recently. They wrote that a very long time ago. Hmm! I'll go with the smarter ones. Creationism.

August 8, 2012 at 2:50 pm |

sqeptiq

That's why they had cars and airplanes and we have to walk everywhere, right? I bet you also believe those people lived to be 800 or 900 years old, too.

August 8, 2012 at 3:04 pm |

Casey

Exactly right. The reason they weren't ordering from dominos 2,000 years ago is because they knew fruits and vegetables were healthier.

August 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm |

TV

Why must we admit or agree that people 2k years ago were smarter? Do you have any proof of it?

Smarter than you? That is more than likely true.

Sad that you had such a poor education.

August 8, 2012 at 3:49 pm |

LJJ

People 2k years ago were smarter? That is why they thought the world was flat, had very little to no medical knowledge, very few people knew how to read or write, and had very short life spans! Shall I go on?

August 8, 2012 at 4:14 pm |

Alpa Chino

Terrifying education fail, Ted.

August 8, 2012 at 2:52 pm |

Alpa Chino

I'm actually crying a little over the fact that I have to share a planet with Ted. It hurts my brain.

August 8, 2012 at 2:54 pm |

TedBlair

You stil have amde no arguments. Idiots always use insult as a mean of escape. LOL!

August 8, 2012 at 2:56 pm |

Alpa Chino

Ted, why would I try and make points with someone with the logic capacity of a wet towel? Your mind is already made up, big waste of time trying to talk sense to you. Just reading your posts makes us all a little dumber.

August 8, 2012 at 2:59 pm |

TedBlair

Alpa,

You confirm youa re an idiot. You just don't have any argument. You are just hiding behind insults. I really feel sorry for you. The bigger threat to this world is a idiot who does not realize he is just an idiot.

August 8, 2012 at 3:03 pm |

Alpa Chino

It's very fitting that your typing proficiency matches your ability to reason. All this 'I feel sorry for you' stuff is fascinating as well. It's almost like you're preprogrammed to behave and respond certain ways.

August 8, 2012 at 3:07 pm |

TedBlair

You stilll have made no arguments other than insults. Wow! You are such an idiot!

August 8, 2012 at 3:14 pm |

Rae

you have no brain

August 8, 2012 at 3:19 pm |

TedBlair

Rae, what does that tell about you? A no-brainer is challenging you ann by lack of argumetns you can only use insults. If you completed elementary school, you should remember your teacher telling you the one who gets so upset in a debate to use insult is the loser. You are a loser.

August 8, 2012 at 3:24 pm |

Rae

I'm really not that upset

August 8, 2012 at 3:25 pm |

Cedar Rapids

Hey Ted you do realise the irony is calling people idiots and losers whilst at the same time claiming that people resort to insults when they have nothing right?

August 8, 2012 at 4:55 pm |

sqeptiq

Where are the laws requiring you to honor your parents or keep holy the Sabbath?

August 8, 2012 at 3:01 pm |

Jerome Haltom

Evolution has evidence. Religion does not.

That's the difference. They are not the same, and one does not require faith. Evolution requires induction. Religion requires abduction.

August 8, 2012 at 3:05 pm |

TedBlair

We have evidence that they fail to reproduce their evolution theory witht he multi-billion atom smasher machine. We have evidence that they keep changing their their hypothesis. Yeah, right!

August 8, 2012 at 3:12 pm |

bpuharic

Ted Blair bleats the incoherent babbling of the creationist. No proof of evolution? Ever hear bacterial resistance? We can TEST evolution. Creationism? Nothing. It's magic. Its says that somehow, something happened and we're here. You creationists were wrong when you said demons caused disease. You were wrong when you said angels moved the planets. You've NEVER been right. Not once. Creationism is the most common wrong idea in history

August 8, 2012 at 3:14 pm |

TedBlair

What about the atom smasher's big failure to prove your theory. The only eveidence left was several billion of dollars down the drain. Woot!

August 8, 2012 at 3:17 pm |

bpuharic

OK I give up. What does the LHC have to do with evolution? Reading creationists is like being on dope.

August 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm |

nocdib

A bacteria that becomes resistant isn't comparable to saying that man derived from an ape-like creature. For example, Gonorrhea has a few strains present today that are resistant to all forms of antibiotics that were previously effective in killing it. At the end of the day it's still gonorrhea and not a new disease. People need to stop equating mutations within a species with the creation of a new species altogether.

August 9, 2012 at 1:49 pm |

Primewonk

@nocdib – humans ARE apes. We did not descend from apes. We share common ancestry with the other great apes.

Mutation is a part of evolution. Natural selection is part of evolution. Evolution is simple a change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time.

Ay, here's the rub: Creationism is a religious idea and has no place in history. For that reason only, it must never be taught in public schools. I pay taxes and I'm a Christian and I don't want Creationism taught in schools as an alternative or for any reason. Separation of church and state is separation of church and state, period.

If any parents object, they can home school their children or send them to religious schools or teach that part of the curriculum at home at night or on Sundays. The public curriculum is already watered down for the sake of those who object to science being taught in school. The US has fallen behind as a result in teaching sciences compared to the rest of the world. Enough is enough.

August 10, 2012 at 11:53 am |

TG

Many people claim that science disproves the Bible’s account of creation. But the real contradiction is between science and, not the Bible, but the opinions of so-called Christian Fundamentalists. Some of these groups falsely assert that according to the Bible, all physical creation was produced in six 24-hour days some 10,000 years ago.

The Bible, however, does not support such a conclusion. If it did, then many scientific discoveries over the past hundred years would indeed discredit the Bible. A careful study of the Bible text reveals no conflict with established scientific facts. For that reason, the Bible disagree with “Christian” Fundamentalists and many creationists. The following shows what the Bible really teaches.

The Genesis account opens with the simple, powerful statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) Bible scholars agree that this verse describes an action separate from the creative days recounted from verse 3 onward. The implication is profound. According to the Bible’s opening statement, the universe, including our planet Earth, was in existence for an indefinite time before the creative days began.

Geologists estimate that the earth is approximately 4 billion years old, and astronomers calculate that the universe may be as much as 15 billion years old. Do these findings—or their potential future refinements—contradict Genesis 1:1 ? No. The Bible does not specify the actual age of “the heavens and the earth.” Science does not disprove the Biblical text.

Humans aren't apes, apes and humans are *primates.* Back to Biology class for you.

August 10, 2012 at 11:54 am |

Atomic Annie

The belief that a cosmic zombie who was also his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
Yeah, Christianity makes perfect sense.

Christianity exists out of habit.

August 8, 2012 at 3:34 pm |

LOL

Hey shhhhh don't tell Ted that, you might destroy his world! LMFAO

August 8, 2012 at 5:50 pm |

LJJ

Evolution and creationism are not either/or theories. MANY religions, including the Catholic church, accept evolution as fact. Believing in evolution does not mean a person does not believe that God created the earth! Why is it such a big leap to accept that God created the earth and everything on it using evolution as a means?! And there is a LOT of evidence that supports evolution. Don't believe it? Take the time to take a college level class and examine the actual evidence yourself.
If you haven't done so, then saying there is not evidence and saying your view is right is totally foolish!

Uh... no. We have two to three laws that are based on the 10 commandments in the US... and many nations do not have laws based on Christian law.

August 8, 2012 at 4:18 pm |

Cedar Rapids

"The seven-day week cycle, night and day, the primary food for humans was fruit and vegetables. Science now proves that fruit and vegetables are a healthier lifestyle,etc. All laws in every country are based on the ten commandments"

wow, where to begin.
ok, what has night and day and seven day week have to do with anything at all? especially as ancient cultures were using seven day weeks before the bible was even written.

"All laws in every country are based on the ten commandments"
er, no, not even close, not even close. almost every society had laws about stealing and killing long before christianity reached their shores.

"the primary food for humans was fruit and vegetables. Science now proves that fruit and vegetables are a healthier lifestyle,etc"
funnily enough fruits and vegs are healthier for man because we evolved that way. But what exactly is the point you are trying to make with this statement? its not as if they ate them because it was healthier for them, they ate them because its what they had easier access too.

August 8, 2012 at 5:03 pm |

The Dude

Ha! The 10 commandments are laws found in every country. Whatever. First of all, which 10 commandments are you referring to? There are 2 sets described in the bible. If you go by the commonly used one. There are only 2.5 of them in law. Don't kill, don't steal, and don't lie ( the half one where it is only illegal in a court of law ). That's it. Coveting is the basis of our economy. Perfectly legal. Funny though, how thou shall not rape or thou shall not own people isn't in either of the 2 lists of 10 commandments.

August 8, 2012 at 5:23 pm |

scientific method

Let's not jump to some religious vs non religious argument here. Science shows age in years based on carbon dating, if you have a problem with carbon dating as a scientific method then say it. Until a person can show me it is so easy to fool a carbon 1/2 foot print Im going with science as to date. Regarding geneology or origin of our species all Iam reading here is that the more they learn the more they add to the information pool and it helps to broaden the larger support for evolution not take away from it.

August 8, 2012 at 2:35 pm |

KLARGAR

How do magnets work?

August 8, 2012 at 2:38 pm |

Farscape

Space magic.

August 8, 2012 at 2:39 pm |

Quid Malmborg in Plano TX

What type of magnet? Electromagnet or permanent magnet? Magnetic garnets?

August 8, 2012 at 2:48 pm |

Alpa Chino

What's the airspeed of an unladen swallow?

August 8, 2012 at 3:03 pm |

scientific method

@ Alpha Chino African or European?

August 8, 2012 at 3:19 pm |

scientific method

Not sure what your getting at here since these are fossils I guess they could be incorporating magnetic dating which uses samples of the "mineral iron" to reflect where the magnetic north/south pole was at that time in geological history as a way to date these items. Regardless of which or most likely ALL methods applied for dating in addition to dating surrounding soil and any other tracable items in and around the dig site. The fact remains it is investigated and measured using the best methods today.

August 8, 2012 at 3:32 pm |

KLARGAR

Fossils the bones of the wicked sinners that perished in the flood

.LOL sarcasm alert.

August 8, 2012 at 2:34 pm |

Poncho's raincoat

Religious or not, the fact is we've been around much longer than 5-6,000 years as the bible scholars state. The changes in traits and gene frequency in organisms from generation to generation is the proof needed to call evolution fact. Debate all you like but its all there for the eyes to see.

August 8, 2012 at 2:34 pm |

sjenner

Human civilization is even older than a literal interpretation of the Bible states. Human settlements have reliably dated as going as far back as 12,000 years, or perhaps even more.

August 8, 2012 at 2:45 pm |

Tendofreak

I thoght I had read somewhere that our species, currently as it is, has been around approx 40,000-50.000 yrs. not even an eye blink in the age of the World.

August 8, 2012 at 3:08 pm |

Quid Malmborg in Plano TX

Tendofreak, anatomically modern humans have been around for ~160,000 yrs.

August 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm |

laurie

yeah, and we 'evolved' from fish...no, primordial slime...no, a common ancestor....and the earth is 500 million years old...no, 50 million years old....the 'facts' change with the wind and tides...clueless and hopeless! how sad

August 9, 2012 at 9:41 am |

Keith

Please don't insult Bible Scholars. Bible Scholars know the earth is older than 6,000 years old. Christian Fundamentalist insists that the world is only 6,000 yeas old and there is nothing scholarly about those guys. They don't even know where their book came from.

The first half of their book is really the Jews book and the Jews don't believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

August 8, 2012 at 2:50 pm |

Caveman

Look.. It's very likely that the origins of religion are based upon the time in which the religion started.. not the actual origin of the human species. I will say this... when we carbon date rocks to 4.5 Billion years old, and the bible says Earth is only several thousand years old.. is ludacris. Even faithful people have to take this notion with a grain of salt in the face of such blatent scientific evidence. Comon' guys.. don't be misled.. you don't even know WHO wrote the bible let alone dropped hazy facts into it. Use the book for it's moralistic values.. not it's scientific value.

August 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm |

Strategic Bob

This is for Caveman,

Carbon dating doesn't date anything that old. The half-life of carbon 14, the carbon that decays radioactively, is too short. It is about 5700 years, which creates a practical limit of about 50,000 years for C14 dating. In fact, scientifically illiterate creationists use the fact that carbon dating can't show anything to be older than about 50,000 years to "prove" that the earth is too young for evolution to have occurred as posited in the Theory of Evolution. There are, however, other materials with much longer half-lives that can be used to date things over longer periods. All of this is science, however, and the modern inheritors or those enemies of truth, knowledge and fact who burned "heretics" at the stake for teaching that earth was not flat or that the earth was not the center of the universe will always continue to find bogus reasons to question the science. You can't educate a rock. Neither can you reason with one. So save your breath.

August 8, 2012 at 3:57 pm |

capnmike

Poncho, Religious nuts don't care about something as silly as facts...they only want to believe a book full of hocus-pocus and nonsense. It's a waste of time trying to get them to see what is right under their noses.

August 8, 2012 at 2:53 pm |

KLARGAR

Creationism = Cretinism.

August 8, 2012 at 2:31 pm |

MrHighMighty

Scientists will continue trying to fit their square peg of theories of human evolution into the round hole of the reality of human uniqueness, tickling their ears with their shifting theories, all to no avail. There is no link to us. These hominids had no souls.

August 8, 2012 at 2:31 pm |

Farscape

Well of course they didn’t. A soul is as mythological as unicorns. But if you have empirical evidence that souls exist..i’m listening.

August 8, 2012 at 2:39 pm |

MrHighMighty

God gave humans an inquisitive and creative mind, He created science, He designed structures and components of life that we can gradually discover, but He also hid grand mysteries outside the physical realm, for the purposes of His Glory. Our souls are not part of the physical realm, and you can't apply "empirical" tests to realities that are outside the physical realm.

August 8, 2012 at 6:29 pm |

cougarblu

What??!!!! They had republicans back then??

August 8, 2012 at 2:40 pm |

SYNAPSE

Good One !!!

August 8, 2012 at 2:53 pm |

Alpa Chino

+1 to cougarblu

August 8, 2012 at 2:47 pm |

sqeptiq

Square pegs=facts
Round hole= the empty space between your ears.

August 8, 2012 at 3:08 pm |

LJJ

RIght, 'cause we all know that scientists are a bunch of uneducated fools right? That is like saying you know more about medicine than your doctor! Obviously you are uneducated and don't have a clue about how science works!

August 8, 2012 at 4:02 pm |

Jason

Lets see now, we're made of cells, we pass information to our offsprings via DNA, the chemical reactions in our body are carried out by proteins and RNA, we use ATP as our main form of energy, our organ systems are found in pretty much every other species of mammals, and even our language can be learned by other great apes. So, how are we so unique compared to the other life forms on this planet?

August 8, 2012 at 5:44 pm |

MrHighMighty

Do animals think about whether their actions are good or evil? Do animals read and write? Do animals comprehend history and death? But OK, if you think you are no different from these ancient hominids and all other animals, if you think you are a result of nothing more than a random collection of atoms and stardust, then that's all you ever will be. If you don't believe there is a Creator you can spend eternity with, don't worry, He won't force you to be with Him, but He is knocking on your door right now.

August 8, 2012 at 6:25 pm |

shawbrooke

Theories are incredibly simplistic when people try to use sketchy findings to support their view of the world. For generations people have tried to fit the findings to the Darwin's mold, rather than look at the evidence and see where it takes them. That's poor science but harmless if confined to the universities where debate is rampant and students have choice of professors. When poor science makes it way into high schools where teachers demand belief from students, as opposed to knowledge, then poor science becomes corrosive to society and harmful to individuals.

August 8, 2012 at 2:29 pm |

sqeptiq

So, you don't take antibiotics or go to medical doctors? You really believe that medical research is all just wishful thinking? I sure hope you don't ever need to get your cancer treated by a fundamentalist preacher.

August 8, 2012 at 3:13 pm |

Tom

evolution 100% false. no evidence, no proof. no logic , no sense-just pretend.

August 8, 2012 at 2:24 pm |

Bill

Yup...just like religion.

August 8, 2012 at 2:30 pm |

Kelly51

Amen!

August 8, 2012 at 2:31 pm |

SPW

Please invest in some very basic middle school science books.

August 8, 2012 at 2:32 pm |

God

Actually, I did use evolution to create you Tom. Just as I used the Big Bang to create the Universe, gravity to form the planets, and the Sun to light the Earth. You are all part of my plan. I simply left a few of you without reason and common sense because I like to watch you get spun up.

August 8, 2012 at 2:33 pm |

God

And by a few of you I meant you and Kelly51.

August 8, 2012 at 2:34 pm |

HAHAHA

Evolution is "Make beleive" says the guy who undoubtedly believes in the "Magic skydaddy" and his magical water.

August 8, 2012 at 2:34 pm |

uh-uh

There is evidence to support the theory of evolution. Just because you choose to ignore it doesn't mean it's not true (or at least a plausable theory).

August 8, 2012 at 2:43 pm |

Amused

I am amazed at people who can blindly deny the ever growing MOUNTAIN of OVERWHELMING evidence CONCLUSIVELY PROVING that Human evolution has been a long complicated process with many branches and many variations as we had long suspected. Then contrast this to the COMPLETE and total LACK of ANY verifiable FACTS whatsoever to support "creationism" nonsense and your empty claim simply confirms your complete lack of reasoning...

August 8, 2012 at 2:46 pm |

bpuharic

Bacterial resistance is proof of evolution. Biogeography is proof of evolution. Creationism? Nothing. In 2000 years creationists can't point to a single success of their idea. Not one.

August 8, 2012 at 3:16 pm |

greg

How the a country capable of putting men in space and sending spaceships to Mars, still manage to produce people who believe in creationism? Very strange.

August 8, 2012 at 3:37 pm |

Breck

Many lines of evidence:
Fossils – we see changes in the types of fossils as you look at different ages of rocks
Embryology -embryos go through the same steps in development
Molecular Biology – all living things have DNA and use the same mechanisms for replication
Convergent Evolution – unrelated organisms in different environments tend to have the same structures/forms (dolphins an sharks are a great example)
Vestigial Organs – parts on organisms that have no function – hips on whales, deactivated genes for teeth in birds, etc...

August 8, 2012 at 3:45 pm |

LJJ

Wrong! There is tons of evidence!

August 8, 2012 at 4:04 pm |

Jason

Go and inject your self with the flu vaccine from 2 years ago then inject yourself with with this year's flu virus. Guess what, you're going to get sick. Why? Because that strain of virus altered its genetic information, in other words, it underwent evolution and your immune system could no longer identify the new virus.

August 8, 2012 at 5:47 pm |

Jhera

Seriously? Evolution makes more sense than some magical appearance a little over 2,000 years ago. God and evolution can co-exist, you know. There doesn't need to be conflict. How? A higher power set into motion the creation and then within the creation evolution took place. Simple. Elegant. No conflict or ridiculous statements about there not be evidence of evolution needed. The evidence is everywhere in nature. It's in our own bodies.

August 8, 2012 at 2:23 pm |

Nah

Exactly.

But anyone who dogmatically adheres to one position or the other won't ever realize this. Why? Because they think being honest and conceding an inch to their opponent means they must concede the entire argument.

August 8, 2012 at 2:27 pm |

Farscape

It’s actually very simple. One as supporting evidence and the other does not.

August 8, 2012 at 2:42 pm |

Quid Malmborg in Plano TX

6,000 years. 12,000 years if one interprets 2 Peter 3:8 literally (i.e. Creation took 6,000 yrs, then add 6,000 years since then).

August 8, 2012 at 2:52 pm |

Keith

Your math is not any better

August 8, 2012 at 2:58 pm |

Quid Malmborg in Plano TX

You're obviously one of the Young Earth Creationists who insist on the 6 ka age for the Earth (as opposed to the 4.54 ± 0.05 Ga that intelligent folks like myself use). HTH

August 8, 2012 at 3:02 pm |

NicPayne

The disturbing argument that you can sometimes interpret the bible literally (Quid says " interprets 2 Peter 3:8 literally") the say that you can't interpret everything literally means that the bible constructionists and the blind followers don't know what they are talking about either. I refuse to believe in a text confounded by contridictions.

Abraham tells him to kill his only son Gen 22:1-14 KJV but then gives Moses the 10 commandments and says "Thou shall not kill" Ex 20:5

Was God wrong in telling someone to kill or wrong to tell someone not to kill.

Question everything and everyone, both scientists and child rapist priests

August 9, 2012 at 9:29 am |

Lorenzo

Jhera...well you almost got it right. About 2,000 years ago there was not a "magical" event, but there was a supernatural event....a man who three times foretold he would be killed and then on the 3rd day rise again, did just that, according to eyewitness reports, the earliest evidence of which was about ten years after. I end with a question: why else would men go to their deaths so willingly? They saw something many refused to believe, but they stood with the truth.

August 8, 2012 at 8:34 pm |

fimeilleur

Please cite your evidence from "as early as ten years later"

August 14, 2012 at 4:17 am |

Gadflie

Men have gone to their deaths for their gods for thousands of years. Thousands of different gods that is...

August 16, 2012 at 9:24 pm |

Robert

I can see the anti-science crowd is in attendance...

August 8, 2012 at 2:22 pm |

Edumucated

Arthurrr, are you serious or pretending to be uneducated? No evidence? This article is ABOUT the evidence. The question is whether or not this fossil represents a distinct species within the genus. Would you have felt better if the fossils were 6000 years old, and the man had been found buried with a dinosaur?

August 8, 2012 at 2:21 pm |

Mike

Just making it up as they go along. But they are sure that is how it happened. They just aren't sure how it happened.

August 8, 2012 at 2:21 pm |

Phil

It's just more evidence. It's a bit like crime scene investigation, each new piece of evidence changes how you think the crime occurred. In this case, as new fossils are found, they change our understanding of human evolution, as they should. We'll never know everything, but new evidence allows us to slowly get closer and closer to the truth. It's interesting to note that recent new evidence has changed fairly fine points in our understanding of human evolution, we're getting down to pretty fine details.

August 8, 2012 at 2:33 pm |

Tom

religion and god 100% false, no evidence, no proof, no logic, all myth non sense make believe just pretend

August 8, 2012 at 2:21 pm |

Nah

tom: "religion and god 100% false, no evidence, no proof, no logic, all myth non sense make believe just pretend"

You're a troll, but I'll bite.

People who are philosophical atheists (Mackie, Flew) recognize the logic and evidence for their opponent's positions but reject them by disputing their logical or evidentiary grounds.

Your ignorance is cute, though.

August 8, 2012 at 2:25 pm |

Tom

it's in response to your bible thumper boy Arthur down there... yet I don't see you telling him to recognize that evolution isn't 100% false...

August 8, 2012 at 2:31 pm |

Nah

tom: "it's in response to your bible thumper boy Arthur down there... yet I don't see you telling him to recognize that evolution isn't 100% false..."

You really can't tell that Arthur is a troll?

August 8, 2012 at 2:36 pm |

ClumBaby

HOOOOORAY! Someone with a brain!!!!!

August 8, 2012 at 2:29 pm |

ClumBaby

I meant Tom, not Nah.

August 8, 2012 at 2:30 pm |

monomial

I think basing such theories on fossil evidence alone is not at all accurate. Every few years we hear of a new discovery that "re-writes our human evolution". If the fossil evidence was at all accurate, we would not hear such proclamations. Until science catches up with our fossil knowledge (like DNA testing), I believe we will continue to re-map our history. I’m getting jaded with these new fossil “discoveries” unless tied with other science.

August 8, 2012 at 2:20 pm |

Keith

That is how we have always learned things, a bit at a time. NO reason to give up on what they are discovering. The Academics actually have a harder time with new information than us citizens. They will hold on to a false presumption longer than anyone.

August 8, 2012 at 3:03 pm |

bpuharic

Evolution is not based on fossils. We have the nested hierarchy of living organisms. We have the testable observations of mutations and natural selection. We can test evolution. Creationism not so much

August 8, 2012 at 3:18 pm |

CosmicC

The problem is not the state of knowledge of evolution, it's populist reporting by people looking to drive advertising revenues up through sensationalist headlines. Reading this sort of an article is always aggrevating. It's clear that most reporters do not understand the subject matter and those that do must cut it down to sound-bites that are almost meaningless.

August 9, 2012 at 1:12 pm |

Arthurrrr

evolution 100% false. no evidence, no proof. no logic , no sense-just pretend.

August 8, 2012 at 2:15 pm |

Your Mother

Yup, and the holy babble is 100% provable fact with no faith required... GTFO.

August 8, 2012 at 2:22 pm |

Nah

First, it's cute that you got trolled.

Second, the existence of a god and religion are not coextensive.

August 8, 2012 at 2:30 pm |

Jkhur

Arthurrr – What an insightful post but you made a typo. You wrote "Evolution" when you mean to write "Creationism". It's ok, that's an easy mistake to make when you aren't thinking.

August 8, 2012 at 2:30 pm |

Nah

jkhur: "It's ok, that's an easy mistake to make when you aren't thinking."

The fact that you got trolled by Arthur makes the irony in this sentence all the more delicious.

August 8, 2012 at 2:32 pm |

Jkhur

Nah – You assume I mind and didn't realize what was happening. Thanks for playing.

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